


Neither Hawk Nor Nightingale

by Auchen



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Psychological Trauma, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-07-15 21:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7239793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auchen/pseuds/Auchen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Post-3x10, completely AU for season 3B. Loosely inspired by the fairy tale Jorinde and Joringel.) Liz is slowly trying to deal with her time on the run, putting back together the shattered pieces of her life that were smashed by the Cabal, and thinks that taking a case involving a simple kidnapping will slowly ease her back into a normal life. Unfortunately, she gets too close to the case and Liz is taken by the kidnapper who believes that she is saving women from dangerous men. Both desperate, Liz and Red must separately try to figure out how to release her from her captor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is loosely based on the little known fairy tale Jorinde and Joringel (also spelled Jorinda and Joringel). This fic is very AU for 3B in a couple ways: Liz did not fall in love with and get back together with Tom as she did in S2, and thus she is not pregnant. The events of 3A generally transpired as they did in canon, and Tom assisted with Karakurt's capture, but Liz only allowed it because it was necessary to exonerate her. But like in 3x11, Liz does not formally have her job back with the task force. Anyway, I'm looking forward to writing this story, and I hope you guys enjoy it!

_"...but if a pretty girl came within this boundary, the old enchantress changed her into a bird, and shut her up in a wicker cage, which she put in one of the rooms in the castle."_

_-Jorinde and Joringel, The Green Fairy Book_

* * *

 

As the key scraped inside the lock, she did not move to cross to the door, just kept her eyes on the television screen flickering in front of her, playing out the same story that she had seen dozens of times. She tugged the blanket further over around shoulders and mouthed the dialogue along with the characters, the words rasping out of her throat and ghosting past her thin lips, a muscle tugging up her mouth into a vague, serene smile. The man on the screen wrapped the woman in his arms, a tight embrace full of passion and comfort. She wiggled on the mattress, biting her lip, knowing that his proposal was about to come next.

The bottom of the door swished across the plush carpet, throwing a slanted square of light across the wall next to her. A black remote sat next to her feet, but she didn't move to get it. She lifted her hands to her face, cupping her chin as her cheeks ached with the smile that sat there.

The mattress shifted as a slight weight dimpled the bed, and a thin hand with rounded, polished fingernails picked up the remote, pushing the pause button. She glanced to the woman next to her, dropping her hands into her lap with a pout.

"I was just about to get to the best part," she protested, eyes darting to the remote that sat in the woman's hand. She did not move to take it.

The woman's face crinkled with a smile as she put the remote back down, and she reached for her hand. "I know, Jenna dear," she said, giving her hand a gentle pat. Her bones were sharp through the soft, moisturized skin of her palm. "And you know that I'm always so happy when I see you girls enjoying yourselves, but I've come back with a special present since you've been following our house's guidelines so well recently."

Jenna straightened up, the blanket dropping down off of her shoulders, and she leaned in closer to look at the small woman, her right hand grasping the woman's bony one. 

"Oh, Miriam! Thank you. You know how much I loved your last present." She nodded at the knitting supplies that sat on a little, low table in the far corner of the room, a half-made scarf spilling out of the tips of the knitting needles.

"I brought you something to make yourself pretty." Miriam released her hand and leaned down to lift up a small paper bag sat on the floor. She sat it on the bed and pulled out a necklace cupped between her hands, a small butterfly charm hanging from the end of it. Its silvery wings glittered in the artificial, glowing light that still emanated from the TV.

"It's...it's _beautiful_. I used to have one similar to it with a moon charm. I got it from--" she stopped short, pit of her stomach growing cold at the name she had been about to say. She twisted her hands in her lap and swallowed hard, biting her lip. She wasn't going to let him torment her anymore. That's why Miriam had done all of this--to take her away from all that he had done. 

"Thank you. I love it," Jenna finished, forcing a smile back to her face. And she truly did love it, but any thought of him did tend to dampen her mood. 

Behind her thick, circular glasses, Miriam's papery skin stretched across cheekbones and wrinkled into a smile. "It's all right. It's natural to still be reminded of him, but just remember that you've been doing so well lately. You've been thinking of him less and less. And if...if I knew that this would have reminded you of him, I would not have bought it for you." 

She began to close her fingers over the necklace, like a venus fly trap slowly closing its leaves over an insect trapped inside of it. Jenna's hands darted, snatching up the little butterfly necklace before Miriam could withdraw it. She pressed it to her chest, the silver chain bumping against her blouse. "No, no! It's all right and I truly, truly appreciate it and all that you have done for me."

Miriam was silent for a moment, eyes glancing to the darkened trees outside of the window, shivering leaves reflected in the thick frames of her glasses. A smile soon returned to her face. "Very well, then. I'm glad you like it, and I'll leave you to finish your movie, but remember to go to bed before eleven thirty."

Jenna raised her brows and pressed her lips together with a nod. "Thank you," she whispered, still grasping the necklace in her hand, the tips of the butterfly's wings digging into her skin.

Miriam mirrored her nod and sat up from the bed, picking up the now empty paper bag the necklace had come in. Her shoes made no sound against the carpet as she walked out the door and closed it.

The key scraped inside the lock.

Jenna fastened the chain about her neck.

* * *

 

Liz didn't expect that the end of her status as a fugitive would be hailed by a streamers and balloons and a bright red banner that said, "Welcome home Elizabeth!" in bubbly, misshapen letters. It was simply that she expected that the next phase of her life would feel different in some discernible way, but she felt as if she was just as adrift as she had been a few weeks ago when she was hunkering inside a safe house away from the light, like some kind of burrow dwelling animal. So, though exhausted as she was, it had been some sort of strange, small comfort when Red had arranged to meet with her concerning some new case. When she had seen the name "Nick's Pizza" light up her phone, her mouth had twitched into some shape of a smile. She needed some semblance of her old existence to cling onto with tight fingers, and a case could ease her back into some sort of discernible routine.

But as she sat on the bench at their pre-arranged meeting spot, her skin prickled and her nerves were electric, sparking up her neck and burning her neurons each time someone's gaze lingered on her a moment too long. Time on the run had carved out whatever sense of safety she ever had and left in its place the honed instincts of hunted prey, ready to sprint and bound away into a crowd if someone seemed about to recognize her or harm her. 

But then, it had also left her with the raw instincts of a desperate predator backed into a corner, ready to lash out and react with a snarl and lashing, unsheathed claws, so when she felt a shadow beginning to sweep over her, she flinched, head jerking up along a stiff neck, ready to defend herself if necessary. Her fingers knotted into the fabric of her jeans.

Pulse quickening at her throat, she pressed her hands flat to her legs when she saw that it was simply Red hovering near her, mouth parted as he looked down at her. She flicked a hand to the empty spot next to her, a muscle in her cheek jumping as she attempted a smile. A slash of light glinted off of his amber sunglasses as he sank down next to her, keeping a space between them. 

The circular shadow from the brim of his hat obscured his eyes, but she saw the furrow in his brow. "Is everything all right?" he asked, voice dipping down as he leaned toward her.

Liz did not want or need concern right now. She couldn't talk about the way she had almost jumped back when the cashier handed her her receipt too quickly, afraid that he was about to strike her, or how obsessively she had gone through every inch of her apartment looking for bugs, checking the locks, and analyzing the different ways she could exit and escape the apartment if she needed to, because if she began to talk about those things, it would be a rushing confession that she might not be able to stop. Right now, she didn't need to pick through her psychological wreckage and salvage for what might have remained intact. Right now, she needed to keep clinging to her life preserver, and kick toward something familiar. And that familiarity was a case. It was something bland, something routine. 

She gave a twitching shake of her head as she inhaled, lacing her fingers together. "Everything is fine. What's up?" She sat up straight, rolling her shoulders back, trying to settle back into the old beat of discussing a case with him.

But he had seemingly latched onto her mood, and once he caught a scent, he was determined. "The case can wait for a moment. You can talk to me if you need to, you know that."

She raised her eyes, pressing her lips together. Why couldn't he leave it? "I know that, but like I said--it's fine. Let's just talk about the case."

The edge of his mouth twitched, and he pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. It was clear that he wasn't about to believe her, but then he bobbed away from her and pressed his thumb against the brim of his hat to adjust it. "Have you heard about the disappearance of Dawn Abato, the girlfriend of mob boss Bruno Sabelli?"

"Sure, I saw it on the news a few nights ago. What about her?" Liz had seen the woman's square face flash across the TV screen mounted in a noodle shop she had gone to a few nights ago, the quality of the photograph bad on a blocky, thick screen that had to be at least seven years out of date. Liz had had a gray hoodie pulled up over her head as her hands gripped a cooling cup of noodles that she listlessly forked into her mouth. It had been a cliche image of a woman hitting the rockiest of bottoms, but she didn't care.

"It wasn't a simple disappearance. It was a kidnapping, and I believe that it is connected to several other disappearances in nearby counties. The women's backgrounds and descriptions are always similar--young women in their mid-twenties or early thirties, typically brunette, and always in a relationship with a man seen as either dangerous or abusive. There are rumors that one person is responsible for all of this, though it's unknown who." Red's voice had returned to that typical business-like tone once again.

She crossed her arms and then said,"I assume you somehow know Bruno?"

"Somewhat," was all he said. She knew he wasn't about to elaborate more than he felt necessary.

"How do we know the women weren't simply murdered?" Abductions happened, but she'd studied enough serial killers to know that a pattern like the one he was describing could also be attributed to something more homicidal.

As if he had completely anticipated the direction their conversation was about to take--and knowing him, he probably had--he slipped his hand inside his jacket and withdrew a glossy photograph. She swayed closer to him, the backs of her legs pressed close against the edge of the bench. All she initially saw in the photograph was a sea of people, their slumping shoulders and shifting legs morphing into an amorphous wave, but then she saw it, the single motionless element--a woman had craned up her long, swan-like neck to look at something above her, her thick lips parted and deer-like eyes staring in glassy confusion. A tangle of black hair fell over her shoulders.

"This woman was one of those kidnapped. An amateur photographer was snapping street photographs, and when he was going through them, he saw her and recognized her as a woman that had recently gone missing from his town. He reported it and posted the photo all over the internet--it was shared thousands of times if I recall correctly--, but she seemed to have disappeared once again." He released his grip on the photograph, and Liz picked it up between pinched fingers.

Her eyes were still fixed on the ghostly woman who stood alone, a sentinel tossed heedlessly about by the blurred confusion of humanity. Liz knew how that felt. 

"Okay," she said, half to herself and half to Red. "We'll bring it to the Post Office." She shuffled through her purse and slipped the photograph inside, careful not the bend it, as if she was somehow protecting the woman's image who had been captured. 

She was about to rise, but then Red wrapped his hand around hers, a thumb running over her knuckles. "It will get easier, in time, Lizzie," he said, voice edging down into that strange, rough tone that he reserved for comfort.

She couldn't be angry. He was not asking her to confess everything that was rattling around inside her cluttered, loud mind. He wasn't even offering to help move around the furniture and sort through the boxes of trauma she kept in her head. He was simply offering her a different life preserver to hold onto for the time being, until she was ready to try to return to the shore. 

She gripped his hand back for a moment, shifting her thumb over the top of his. "I hope so."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I write fanfic, one of my main goals is to keep characters in character. So I'm doing my best to keep Liz IC, I've chosen to use some personality traits of hers we haven't seen in canon recently, such as her profiling/analytical skills. I also feel that her time with Red made them closer and that the end of 3x10 was a turning point for them, and so it's true she'll get annoyed with him in the fic sometimes, I'm not choosing to write their relationship as combative and angry as it was in 3B canon. Still, I hope that these characterization choices generally seem true to the core of who Liz is.

_"Then they looked around them, and were quite at a loss, for they did not know by which way they should go home."_

_\--Jorinde and Joringel_

* * *

 

It was strange to come back to the Post Office in jeans, a T-shirt, a watch, and a jacket, instead of entering it hunched over, clad in clothes drenched with sweat and smeared with dirty scuffs, handcuffs bruising a red outline onto her wrists. As the elevator clunked down, the metal vibrated into her bones and into the pit of her guts. It was like descending back into a dream that she had had a few nights ago, whose details had become a smeared haze of terror and choking. Before the doors slid open she ran a hand through hair newly returned to its original dark color and dragged her hand down the front of her shirt, smoothing out wrinkles she hadn't ironed. If she made herself look the way she had before, her transition into an FBI asset would be easier. The elevator stuttered to a halt, and the flaking, yellow doors ground open to reveal the office space. Though she mostly wanted to delve into the details of the case straight away, she knew that the right thing to do would be to thank the team for all that they had done for her. And so, she walked to each of the team members to speak to them. 

They had each smiled at her in turn as she individually addressed them, but as she thanked Ressler, it was hard to forget his feet pounding after her in the forest, chasing her to ground like a deer, his weight against her back as he pushed her down to arrest her, her body surging with adrenaline, lungs gasping for air and insides writhing with fear at facing the Cabal. 

He had been sticking to his firm code and was doing what he believed to be correct, and he never would have let her die. She truly admired that. He had rarely ever muddied the waters of his morality by dipping his toe into the muck of reality. He had not soiled himself in the way she had. But still, the image of his gun flickered in her mind, dappled forest light glinting off the steel of it as he pointed the black hole of the muzzle down at her face.

And as she spoke to Aram, his eyes shining with relief that she was with them once again, for a moment she remembered his desperate, pleading voice as she lay on the floor of the Box, face pressed against the ground, throat rattling, body shutting off as she was starved of oxygen. 

Then she'd simply rattled off the information Red had given her about the case, reciting each word like a script she had memorized, staring at the faces of the kidnapped women as their faces flipped up on the monitors in correspondence with each clack of Aram's keyboard. Near the middle of her speech, something shifted in her mind, and it was like the past few months hadn't happened, and she was simply reviewing a routine case. None of the fractures and complications that had occurred between her and the other members of the task force existed. 

Once she'd completed her spiel, it seemed that her teammates had also fallen back into the familiar cadence, slipping back into their assigned acting roles. 

Navabi hovered near Ressler with her arms crossed, eyes jumping back and forth between the six different women. "We'll talk to families and friends, see if there are any other, deeper connections beyond their appearances and relationships."

Standing in front of the monitors with his back to them, a finger against his chin, Harold nodded in agreement to her statement. "Aram, you check for any details you can find--medical records, schooling, if they had any friends in common on their social media...anything like that."

"You got it. Though..." he sighed, pressing a hand to his forehead, lowering his voice as he glanced toward where Liz stood next to him, "I'm not looking forward to seeing if their social media contains anything explicit."

Unfortunately for him, he'd seen a good amount of that sort of content when dissecting the contents of victims' and suspects' lives. She knew when he'd seen something lewd by the way his forehead would crease, and he'd scrunch his lips to the side. And really, little quirks like that were one of the things she'd missed about the team. She'd been surrounded by a rotating cast of strangers so often recently that returning to familiar oddities was comforting. 

She exhaled a soft laugh, widening her eyes at Aram as she leaned her hip against his desk. "Good luck." 

Ressler tugged on his black jacket as he swished past her, Navabi a dark shadow following in his wake. Liz almost slid into step behind them before her feet froze to the floor, and the illusion that this was simply another day melted away.

She was not an FBI agent anymore. She was an asset now. Her teeth ran along the inside of her cheek, walking backwards to resume her spot beside Aram whose fingers were already a flurry of activity, hands a blur as he switched from clicking the mouse to the stabbing at the keyboard and back again. Navabi had broken away from Ressler for a moment and pressed her hand down on the desk, a few inches away from where Liz's lay. 

"I'm sorry," she said. Liz just jerked up her shoulders in a shrug, though she felt it was as if everyone knew what was boiling inside of her mind. Was she really that transparent?

"It's fine," she waved a hand. "I can help out here if I'm needed."

Navabi's dark eyes stayed on her, hand slipping away from the desk as she placed it on Liz's shoulder. "All right. You'll certainly be able to assist us in analyzing the information we get from the victim's friends and family."

"Yeah, yeah. I will." She bobbed her head, hair bouncing against her neck. It wasn't field work, but at least it was something. Recently her profiling skills had been put to work in the field altogether to often when she had to calculate whether someone's squint meant that they had recognized her, or whether they simply had the sun in her eyes. Not going with Ressler and Navabi would be a reprieve from that, in fact. Dealing with sterile information on paper would be a good distance between the pulse pounding exercise of interpreting a the dozens of meanings a glance held.

Navabi pressed the heel of her palm into her shoulder in a firm, half-pat, before she slipped her hand away and followed after Ressler who stood by the yawning mouth of the elevator, head turned back as he idled for his partner.

"Okay." Liz spun her head around and spotted a chair nearby. She grabbed the back of it and rolled it over to Aram's desk, the wheels squeaking, seat wobbling as it was dragged across the slick, mirrored floor. She plopped herself down into the chair, turning to a string of numbers that Aram was currently sorting through.

"Okay," she repeated again, a reassuring beat. "Let's get started then." 

* * *

Once she slunk back to her apartment, her eyes burned from staring into a bright screen for most of the day. Most of the information had not proved helpful. The women's finances showed nothing, and the records of their texts simply provided more evidence of the abuse that they already knew about. Two of the women--Dawn and Amelia--had not been abused, but as Reddington had said, had been involved with a dangerous man. Dawn, of course, had been with the mobster, and Amelia had been with a man who couldn't seem to shake a bad thieving habit.

None of the women seemed to have been connected, aside from being from counties in Virginia that were near each other. They didn't have even the weak, tenuous connection owning a membership card for the same gym. Liz slithered into a chair that sat at her kitchen table, slapping down a pile of information probably filled with false leads and meaningless words that she needed to sort through in the next few days. 

She scrubbed a hand through her hair, trapping a sigh that threatened to rise up her throat. She leaned her elbows against the table, laced her fingers, and pressed her chin against her knuckles. The papers sat next to the crook of her arm. She narrowed her eyes at them, and from the corner of her eye, the lonely, hulking specters of the boxes that contained her scant belongings lurked in the corner of the kitchen. She hadn't bothered to unpack at all. She couldn't bring herself to rip tape off boxes and take her things out in an attempt to make this place have some personalized touch.

But maybe that's what she needed--some mind numbing task to take her focus off of the other mind numbing task of paperwork. 

She stared at the papers.

She stared at the boxes. 

She kicked her feet against the floor, chair grinding against the hardwood with a groan as she propelled herself up from the chair and into the diagonal shadows where her boxes sat. She stabbed her keys into the box labeled "dishes and silverware", and dragged her key through the tape, widening the vertical wound in the top of the box. Wrapping her fingers around the flaps, she tore it open and jerked her hand back when the cardboard almost sliced a neat paper cut into her index finger. She glared at the offending box flap and this time, with more care, gripped the flaps and pulled them back to reveal a small stack of dishes sitting next to a bundle of silverware at the bottom of the box.

The dishes were off-white with no designs or adornment. They were things made for simple, durable practicality, a bland commodity that could be slipped off the kitchenware shelves of any number of department stores littering America. The silverware was similarly generic--their tinny surfaces glinting off her dim kitchen light. 

She didn't need anything expressive, especially with _her_ abysmal cooking skills. There was no point in getting any dishes even with a simple, nice flowery pattern if their surface was going to be ruined by the ashy, scorched carcass of a grilled cheese sandwich adhering itself to the plate. She reached for the silverware, about to slip the rubber band off of the bundle when her hand paused, hovering just above their handles. Behind her door, there was the hushed rumble of voices that had paused in the hallway.

She tilted her head, angling her ear toward the door. Her heart was a drum in the cage of her ribs.

It was likely just some neighbors coming home late from a night of drinks. But then even if it _was_ her neighbors, what if they knew she was the one that lived there? She had nearly been denied her apartment because of her bloodlines and what some people believed she had done. 

The voices lowered, the grumble of a man's voice vibrating through the wood of the door. A woman's voice answered with a pitched tone. 

That was not the tone of two jubilant, drunk people stumbling their way home in a haze of joy and inebriation. It was the rough scrape of danger, the tensing of a muscle before a finger pulled back on the hammer of a gun. She slipped a cutting knife out from the nest of forks and spoons and crept to the door, her entire body a coil ready to spring if necessary.

Someone's foot bumped against the door, sending it rattling on its hinges, making the stripe of light under the door tremble. Her hand grew tighter around the knife handle.

She edged around the corner, keeping her body low as she inched up to press her eye to the peephole. The view through the peephole was dark before someone's shoulder shifted and shuffled forward. A man and a woman stood in front of her door, the woman's arms crossed, nose and mouth wrinkled in an almost-snarl. 

"You almost killed us," the man hissed. "And not for the first time either. Why can't you ever be more careful when you're crossing lanes?"

"You could've driven us back if you were really that worried." The woman's voice was steel.

Liz swallowed, her muscles going limp as if all the air had been released from her body. 

One by one, fingers holding the knife curled away until it fell, embedding itself tip-down into the carpet. 

* * *

She had stationed herself near the door to unpack some of her books, and in the middle of that process, something had shattered in the apartment across from her. Not taking time to mull over what might have broken, she tossed a paperback back into the box where it flopped, creasing the pages and bending the cover. She jolted to her feet, pressing her hands flat to the plane of the door, pressing her eye down hard against the peephole.

A woman kicked the door open, the warm square of her apartment glowing behind her, the gentle light caressing her desperate face as she bustled out with white knuckled hands clutching a white, thin trash bag. As she galloped down the hall, Liz caught a glimpse of the broken fragments of a jade vase at the bottom of the bag.

Just the shattered pieces of a priceless vase.

Just a grumbling argument between an angry couple.

Just the crack of thunder, not an explosion.

Just a nightmare ending with her sheet gently twisted around her neck, not hands crushing her windpipe, smothering the embers of her life.

She pressed her forehead against the door, lip wobbling, chin trembling. Her forehead pounded as she screwed her eyes shut, trying to dam the flow of tears that threatened to burst from her tear ducts. But she had not built the dam strong enough, had not built it high enough. She sank down to the floor, covering her mouth as tears slid down the hills of her cheeks and dropped into the valley of her chin, eventually pattering onto her pants. Her body shuddered with silent sobs.

* * *

 

In the morning when she sat up from the mattress on the floor that was currently serving for as bed, she realized that it was perhaps time to attempt to get some sort of help. All that time ago when Ressler had refused to talk to anyone when he was dealing with the death of Audrey, she had advised that it was necessary to deal with his addiction. So perhaps it was time to swallow her stubborn belief that she could deal with this completely alone and take her past self's advice.

That was why, after another day of fruitless analysis with Aram, that evening she found herself sitting on a metal folding chair near the back of the room at an anonymous support group for survivors of trauma. It had been a group of such nature nearest to her apartment, and the anonymous aspect of it had appealed to her. The website didn't even say she had to participate at first if she didn't want to. So she'd crept in and perched on a chair near the back, her hoodie pulled up over her face, its shadow covering the sharp, familiar angles of her cheekbones and the dip of her nose that might seem recognizable to anyone who'd seen her splashed across the 24 hour news cycle. 

But as she sat there with her feet against the bar of the chair, hands nestled into the pocket of the hoodie, she began to realize:

The man that was holding back tears as he told his story of being the only survivor of a boating accident could not know what it was like to have the entire country paint a target on his back and have people that wanted a bullet between his eyes. He knew choking and drowning, water down his throat and up his nose, not the complete absence of air itself as someone willingly took away his air supply.

The narrow faced woman with frizzy hair and a reedy voice who described moving to DC because she lost her home in a fire only knew a random act of nature, disastrous but unmalicious. She did not know what it was to be standing amid the wreckage of a disaster that had only been orchestrated because of her existence.

Each of these people's trauma was valid. She completely knew that. But they couldn't understand what it was to be an nationally wanted fugitive, just as she couldn't imagine what it was like to simply be dealing with a small, personal tragedy. 

She pulled her hoodie closer to her face, rose from the chair, and made her way out of the building.

* * *

 

Her apartment was a yawning, empty mouthed cavern swallowing up her and her scant belongings. She sat at the table once again, because it was either sitting there or sitting on the floor, and she wasn't about to abandon her pride enough to sit with her misery alone in the middle of the floor where a sofa should have been.

Outside, a taxi disgorged a passel of people that yipped and giggled like hyenas drunk on the thrill of the hunt. The taxi sped away, backfiring once. She held a hand down on her arm to keep herself from flinching at the coughing backfire.

She lifted her head and stared out at the wide, open expanse of her apartment once again. It was still devoid of any sort of personality. Her box of paperbacks sat near the door where she had abandoned them, a pile of books spilling half out of the box's maw. The dish and silverware box sat on its side, a lone spoon poking out of it. Her apartment was a transitory, in-between, twilit realm.

And utterly empty.

That was one of the strange things about coming back to civilian life. She had spent so many weeks in constant, close proximity with Red. Their schedules had pivoted and synced around each other, caught around one another's gravitational pull like a binary star system. When she was curled up on some ratty couch in a safe house or sitting beside him in a car, she could count on him being close by, the weight of his presence always in the back of her mind. Spending so much time with one person had made them deeply, intimately observe each other and learn things about the other that even a good friend might not know. They were both guarded people, but they had unfolded pieces of themselves to the other that had not seen the light of day in a long time. _"I've never told anyone about that before,"_ he'd said to her once.

That closeness, that constant companionship and occasional, fearful vulnerability during time together had almost been what it was like to be married--

She pressed her eyes closed, blinking rapidly to dispel the thought. But still, after they'd separated, after his constant presence had been pulled from her, it was one of the things that had sent her adrift. So as she was playing with her phone in an attempt to distract herself, she inexplicably found herself pulling up her phone contacts. Her upper teeth pressed down into her lower lip as her finger hovered over the words "Nick's Pizza". 

Her thumb thumped down on the number. The phone began to call Red. 

She just needed to briefly hear a familiar voice, she reasoned as his phone rang. That was all.

The ringing abruptly ended. "Lizzie?" his voice sounded slightly faraway, as if she had interrupted him. "What is this about?"

"I--" she winced and pressed her fingers into her forehead. Why hadn't she thought of some excuse? "I was just about to call for Chinese, but I accidentally clicked on your number instead."

On the other end, he exhaled a chuckle at her humorous evasion. "What, I'm not worthy of being put above some cheap take-out place, even after all I've done for you? Come on now."

"Maybe it's cheap, but it sure mouths off less to me when I need it than you do," she teased. "Anyway, as long as we're talking, I might as well tell you that we should meet tomorrow to talk about the kidnappings." She was relieved she'd been able to segue into some actual, believable excuse. And it was partly true anyway.

"Very well. Meet me at the coffeehouse Cup Half Full tomorrow." His phone clicked off.

The conversation had been brief, but hearing his low voice near her in the vastness of her apartment had somehow been comforting.

* * *

Forty minutes after her brief phone call, she had put her iPod in its dock, turning on "Kyrie" by Mr Mister, and was about to heat a late TV dinner in the microwave when there was a light pounding on her door. She jumped at the sound and scowled at her reaction. Stilling herself, Liz resolved that she was going to react to a knock on her door like a normal person. 

She turned the music down and crossed to the door, tilting her head to look through the peephole. Lurking a few feet away from the door, squinting as he glanced around the hallway, stood Red holding two cartons of Chinese food.

She took a step back from the door as she let out a snort. Why was he here? It was late, and she wanted to be alone after a long day. Though her desire for solitude wasn't fully true--the emptiness of her apartment still ate at her--she didn't want him thinking that she was moping around, needing someone. But she couldn't exactly just leave him standing there either. If she didn't let him in, no doubt he'd begin to complain at her from behind the door. 

So she unlatched it and tugged the door open with raised eyebrows. "Yes, sure, come right on over." She rolled her eyes. 

He wrinkled his nose as he turned toward where her iPod sat as it wailed out the last minute of _Kyrie_. "Good heavens, what are you listening to?"

"What, you don't like 80s pop rock?" Despite being mildly annoyed at his unannounced visit, she couldn't help but smile at his musical snobbery. 

"Not particularly," he said, looking pleased when the song ended. His eyes flicked around the room for a place to put down the food. His head swiveled to the empty, sofa-less spot, gaze lingering there for a moment. He frowned, but said nothing as he turned to the kitchen table and set the cartons down on the middle of it. He tugged off his hat and put it next to them as he pulled out one of her chairs and slipped into it.

Liz remained standing, arms clamped over her chest, sudden anxiety seizing her. "Red, what were you thinking coming here? What if someone saw you? The owner of the building already knows me from the news, and some other people living here probably do too. What if they saw you? Are you _trying_ to put us in danger?" She tried to keep her tone firm, but her voice pitched up.

"Do you honestly think that I would've spent twenty-five years on the run, only to be captured while playing take-out delivery boy?" Though the words were sarcastic, he seemed insulted that she believed so little in his caution.

"No, I--" she ran a hand through her hair. "What are you even doing here, anyway? It's late. I was about to make myself food before you showed up."

"Well, I'm glad that I arrived in time before you subjected your dinner to a fiery death." Red gave a glance that was almost sympathetic to her microwavable meal that still sat on the counter near the microwave with its plastic lid peeled half-open. "I simply thought I'd bring you some Chinese food over, since you were going to order it anyway before you accidentally called me."

He laced his fingers, placing his hands on the edge of the table as he gave her a half-smile. He knew that she hadn't accidentally called him. Somehow, he'd discerned that she'd been lonely and had missed human contact and...well, yes. Missed being around  _him_ specifically. This visit of his just was a small, simple gesture, and incomparable to the act of putting his criminal empire on hold in order to help clear her name. She knew if she ever needed him to, he'd push back against the world so it would move out of her way, and yet here he was showing up at her door in the middle of the night with Chinese food that'd he'd probably rather throw away in a dumpster than eat. The idea of FBI's fourth most wanted caring about her enough to bring her takeout was so ridiculous that it made her want to laugh, and then perhaps cry a bit. 

Irritation gone, she pulled up a chair next to him and dragged a carton over to her. "Thank you. I'm sorry some of your hard stolen money had to go to food that you hate." She gave a weak smile. 

Red was already holding his carton in one hand, picking at the rice and noodles with chopsticks. "Oh, I'd say the purchase wasn't altogether wasted." He glanced at the wall behind them. "You don't have a TV yet, do you?"

She swallowed some noodles. "Nope. No American Idol for me right now."

"Do people even watch that anymore? Not that I _ever_ did, but it was awfully popular for a while. Now don't people watch, what is it--the Singer? The Voice? The Singing Voice? I don't know. Either way, it's probably not worth watching." He flexed his jaw and widened his eyes in disbelief at the state of reality TV.

His lack of knowledge regarding talent shows made her mouth twitch in amusement. "It's The Voice, and I watch that one sometimes too."

"Really, it's probably a good thing you don't have a TV right now since it's keeping you from watching that show, though I suppose a lack of TV might make you a bit bored." He stared into his carton for a moment as if it contained an answer to something. "I could tell you a story, if you wanted. It'd be infinitely more interesting than the Voice, I'm sure."

Typically, he didn't offer the choice between hearing a story or not. He just launched into them, rambling on about his time in the jungles of Cameroon or his exploits stealing upscale artwork. She wasn't sure what it meant that he was asking if she wanted to hear one rather than simply beginning one of his tales. But the stories were always bizarre and entertaining, and she wanted to hear something interesting, so she agreed.

As if she was a director that had given an actor a cue, he pushed aside his takeout and recounted a time he had been trying to meet with a contractor in the Gobi when he was attacked.  His descriptions and dynamic facial expressions thrust her into the desert heat with him, and for the next fifteen minutes, he managed to transform her drab, white carpet into shifting dunes of sand, and the buzzing of the kitchen light into the whine of mosquito wings. She'd sat still in the chair, captured in the spell of his voice, and when he'd ended the story and it was time for him to leave, she found herself mildly disappointed, though she didn't want to consider why she felt that way. 

They'd walked to the door together, and he'd paused in front of her for a moment, head tilted, eyes scanning her face before he swallowed and shuffled back. "Good night, Lizzie," he said, voice coarse. 

She nodded. "Good night." 

The door whispered shut, and she went to bed shortly after that.

For the first time in several weeks, her mind was not wracked by nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys are interested in my planning process for this fic, you can check out this tag on my tumblr blog, where I vaguely talk about writing it! http://auchen.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20nightingale%20project


	3. Chapter 3

_"One day in order that they might be able to talk together in quiet they went for a walk in the forest. 'Take care,' said Joringel, 'that you do not go too near the castle.' "_

_-Jorinde and Joringel_

* * *

 

As he slipped his sunglasses down over his nose, she caught him looking down at her black coffee under hooded eyes and a twisted lip. 

"Well that's...practical," Red said. It was probably the kindest thing he could think to say of her beverage choice.

Hushed conversations hummed around the outdoor table they sat at as coffeehouse patrons soaked up the bright, cool morning, their frothy scarves shoved up below their chins and knit caps crammed over their pink ears. It didn't seem like his typical sort of scene--the place was overrun by twenty-something hipsters decked out in flannel as they clacked out what were probably philosophical treatises on their laptops. But he probably knew the owner one way or another (probably involving some elaborate story involving theft and money laundering).

She just shrugged at his barely veiled derision for her drink. "I've always been no-frills when it comes to my coffee. I don't need some fancy combination like 'grande vanilla pumpkin spice espresso with two shots of creamer'. I just need to function, and black coffee does that just fine." Liz saluted him with her cup and lifted it to her mouth and took a long swallow, her eyes trained on him the whole time. The twist in his lip only deepened as she savored her cheap, "practical" coffee.

She knew they were both slowly approaching the point at hand, delaying the inevitable discussion that they needed to have about the kidnappings. But this morning she had woken up for the first time in weeks without feeling the heavy dread behind her eyes of facing yet another day of having her base evolutionary instincts screaming at her that there was a threat in every shadow. If she could keep her mood light a few minutes longer by indulging in Red's penchant for palate snobbery and acerbic banter, it was worth it.

His hand reached out to pull his own drink closer to himself, which was no doubt the sort of thing she had just disparaged.

"I think you just make it black because you'd boil or burn anything else." He gave her a thin, crooked smile. She narrowed her eyes above the cup, even though his assessment was true. She gave another deep gulp of her coffee in an attempt counter his point. 

So there they sat for a moment, competitively drinking coffee at each other. The absurdity of it all almost made Liz choke on her drink.

"And that's why I don't drink it black," he said as she sputtered, wrinkling his forehead and pursing his lips.

"Why don't we set the topic of gourmet coffee aside for a moment and get to the reason we met here." She  wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and set her mug on the corner of the table, careful to keep it away from the edge, lest she knock it over as she had done several days ago at home when the slam of a door made her jump and smack the cup off the counter. She'd narrowly avoided getting a shard of a mug in her palm while she'd carelessly cleaned up the mess and swore under her breath. 

"I don't expect you found much." He set his own mug down with a certain amount of delicacy, turning it so that the side with the handle faced him.

Her chest grew tight and she frowned. Was he making a jab at how distracted she had been recently, or was he commenting on the fact that the helpful details of the case were sparse? Knowing him, he might have meant both, but the idea that he might have been needling her for being distracted dampened the somewhat decent mood she had. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

He folded his hands over his stomach and waggled his head with a shrug. " _Oh_ , just that--as much as I hate to admit it--since I haven't found much thus far, I very much doubt that the FBI has been able to either."

Her irritation dissipated a bit, especially at the fact that he had admitted that even with the skills he so loved to boast about, even he hadn't been able to dig up much.

"Well, you're not wrong." She wrapped her hands around her mug and rubbed it between her hands. "So far, we haven't been able to find any strong connections between the women. They don't seem to run in the same social circles at all. The best thing we could find is that Allison and Jenny would sometimes shop at the same supermarket, but they never seemed to run into each other as far as we could tell. We analyzed the reports of the scenes of the disappearances and weren't able to find many significant details. The last person they spoke to was always their significant other, and the same sort of shoe treads were found at three of the six crime scenes, but they haven't been able to match it to anyone."

The dredges of her coffee trembled as she continued to rub the cup between her hands, her palms now warm from the friction of the repetitive movement. "I just--" she leaned the cup on its side, tilting the grounds so they made a small, crumbling hill at the bottom of the cup. Her shoulders slumped a bit as she leaned her arms against the table. "I hope we can find them. I hate cases like this. The ones that barely have anything. I didn't visit the families, but I can imagine what their faces look like--still holding out hope that their daughter or sister is still alive."

"We will," he said, voice firm with certainty. 

She sucked at her bottom lip and shifted her gaze away from coffee sludge to his eyes. "But you can't know that."

His gaze was firm, like a lion whose sights had been set on quarry that would not escape. "Yes, I can. We've solved far more dire cases than this, Lizzie."

She flicked up an eyebrow and just tilted her head with a shake. "I guess you're right."

"You should talk about it, you know." Red picked up his mug and gave a slow sip, eyes lowered.

"The case? We were just talking about it." But Liz knew what he meant. She just hoped that if she evaded hard enough that he would take the hint and not keep prodding at her.

"I'm not talking about the case. I'm talking about what you're going through. I've seen it before--the flinching, the constant vigilance. The..." he lowered his gaze and flexed his jaw, firmness from the eyes fading away to be replaced by concern, "fear."

Her hand grew tight around the cup, tips of her fingers going white, anger flaring in her chest. Why couldn't he leave her to process this on her own? Couldn't he just respect the boundaries that she had obviously set up? "I don't need you to play therapist. I studied these sorts of cases enough to know how to deal with it by myself."

"Can you really, Lizzie? You don't think that if counselors are dealing with some sort of mental distress that they won't seek help? They, most of all, know seeking support is necessary." He scooted in closer to the table, shifting his mug aside. "We are a social species, it's in our DNA. It is _essential_ that we seek support from our social networks in times of disaster and distress."

"And what social network do I have?" she snapped. "I tried to go to a support group, but that was a waste of time. I can't go to anyone at the task force to talk about this, and don't have friends outside of them."

Red swallowed, the skin beneath his eyes tightening. "You have me. You know that."

She closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her cheek, rubbing her fingers against her eyebrow. The moment before he'd spoken, she wished she could've snatched her words out of the air and crammed them back into her mouth. But her emotions were tumbling within her, flickering from angry to somber to frightened and back again, and they'd shifted to angry just at the wrong moment when she had been about to speak. "Red, I...that's not what I meant. When I said the task force, I meant--I included you in that group."

"Don't keep bottling it up, Lizzie. If you do, it will fester inside of you and will rot you. I _never_ want that to happen," he said, voice almost pleading. 

Sometimes she didn't know what to do when he showed so much raw concern for her. She still didn't fully understand why he cared so deeply about what did or didn't happen to her. But--maybe there was some truth in what he was saying. The last time she'd refused to speak about anything or take help, she'd ruined a family's life because she'd locked Tom up in the bottom of a rusting ship.

"Okay," she said to the mucky bottom of her coffee cup. And then, to Red, whose eyes were unshuttered and full of intensity, "Okay. I just--it's so much to process, you know? The whole time we were on the run, there was no time for all of it to completely settle in, and so much happened to me. An entire country was hunting me down, an entire shadow government wanted me _dead_ and was working their damned hardest to make sure that happened. So coming back to this," she waved her hand at the bright, shining world around them. The oblivious, stupid, beautiful world that was ignorant to the storm that was raging inside the gray matter of her brain. "--is a lot to take in. I think what I went through just suddenly came down on me all at once, and it's not easy to process."

There it was--the truth. Or at least, part of the truth. She hadn't exposed the most twisted, broken parts of herself to him. She had settled on a summarized, sanitized version of the truth for him. It was informative enough to give him what he wanted, but not so detailed that she had exposed the most ugly parts of the wound to him. He'd seen a glimpse of the scab, and that was enough for now.

"What you feel is entirely natural. There is no shame in feeling the way you do, _especially_ considering the fact that you have weathered much worse than this. It isn't easy now, but trust me--you will learn how to turn the paranoia into tempered caution," he said.

Liz didn't need to ask to know that he was speaking from personal experience. It was easy for her to imagine a younger version of him had been thrust into a roiling criminal world that was unfettered by any sense of society's morality. In that kind of environment, you wouldn't survive long if you let your anxiety always get the best of you. Adaptation had to come quickly.

"I know. And--thank you." She sat her hands in her lap and lowered her head. She wasn't quite ready to look back up at him and see that undisguised concern again. Somehow knowing that someone cared that much occasionally made her uncomfortable.

"Do something for yourself, it will make you feel better. Maybe get something for that apartment of yours--it's dreadfully bland. Maybe something colorful. The beige walls would act as a wonderful back drop for that little special _pop_ ," he paused to snap his fingers for emphasis, "of color." 

He was the sort of man that would slap down a pretty penny to buy something for himself in order to soothe a problem, so it didn't surprise her that he was encouraging her to splurge. Typically, she might just pour herself a glass of cheap wine while watching a trashy movie and call it a treat, but maybe he was right. At the very least, it was true that she needed to do something so she didn't feel like her apartment was so dull and dismal.

"I'll consider it." She didn't want to fully commit to his suggestion lest he invite himself along with her to act as a consultant when it came to what color palettes matched the carpets and walls. She preferred to get in and out of stores without quibbling over those sorts of details.

"Good. Well, I presume I'll see you soon. Don't hesitate to call if you have any new details, but I would advise that you be careful when you contact me next time considering your little mix up from last night. We don't want you spilling classified information to your take-out boy, do we?" he grinned at her as he stood up and picked up his sunglasses, the bottom of his jacket fluttering as a small breeze kicked up.

With a roll of her eyes, she crumpled up a napkin and chucked it at him, which he easily stepped out of the way from. A smile twitched at the edge of her mouth. "Go on, get outta here."

He raised his hands in surrender and took a step backwards, lowering his head in mock defeat. "As you wish."

* * *

That evening Liz had gnawed over his advice a bit longer and had decided to pick up flowers at a flower shop a few miles away from her apartment. Flowers were a basic decorative item that required no special commitment or talent in choosing complimentary colors. They could just sit on her counter looking nice for a while, and then she could toss them out once she inevitably forgot to water them properly.

But once she arrived at the flower shop, she was overwhelmed by the options. Trembling leaves and petals of any hue exploded from every corner of the shop. There were jagged, sharp pink flowers that looked delicate and vicious all at once, there were roses dyed artificial blue, there were strange, exotic plants that smelled strangely. As she shifted away from the overwhelming options, she was met with little succulents tucked back on a shelf near the window, their stock sparse, likely due to the fact that she'd recently heard people raving over how little care they took to keep alive. That was probably the sort of thing she should've considered buying, but they had little color to them, and she'd come to the shop with the specific purpose in mind of adding a splash of warmth to her bleak dwelling space. 

She shuffled to the next shelf and considered what seemed to be a single purple daisy growing in a plain brown pot. It looked like something that someone would set out on there window sill or on a front porch and forget about it.

It was perfect.

As she reached out to take it and look at the price, but someone shifted beside her and shoved her into a small figure to her right. There was a scrape of shoes against the slick tile, and a shower of clattering coins as the person's purse smacked to the floor. Liz whirled and bent down, insides twinging at the fact she could suddenly feel several pairs of eyes stabbing into the back of her neck.

They were just looking at what had happened, that was all. They didn't care about who she was, they just cared about the entire scene itself.

She tried to keep her attention focused on scooping up a handful of coins. The person she'd knocked into was an older woman with thick, round glasses that were slipping down the edge of her nose as she slid a thin hand across the floor to plow her change back into her expansive purse. Her other hand clutched a small bouquet of white, frilly flowers. She reminded Liz of a frail, delicate bird.

Liz scrubbed a hand through her hair as she deposited a handful of change and bills into the leather opening of the woman's purse. "I'm so sorry. I was bumped into and--" she waved her hand at the smattering of money that was left on the ground.

The woman looked up at her, the fluorescent lights flashing thick diagonals of light against her large frames. "Oh, it's no bother, you needn't worry about it. I'm not hurt, dear. I've dealt with much worse things, I assure you." Her smile emphasized the map of lines that ran down her cheeks.

Liz grabbed another fistful of change and bills, grit from the floor scraping her fingers. She dumped them in the purse. "I still feel bad, though."

"Well, if you really want to make it up to me, do you mind helping me bring my bouquet to my car?" The old woman shifted her purse back over her shoulder and stood.

Rising from her kneeling position, she nodded. If she could do at least one decent thing today, she'd chalk that up as a success. She still wanted to buy that daisy, though, so she picked it up and held it protectively against her chest as she walked to the cashier, aware of the old woman hovering near her as Liz pressed the potted plant to her side while she dug through her pocket for money. 

The woman hummed behind her as the money exchanged hands. It was a low, twining sound in her throat. It sounded like dust and decay, like creaking doors and squealing floorboards.

The change clattered in the cashier's till. The machine whined as it printed her receipt.

She snatched it up and shoved it into her pocket, arm looping around the base of the pot to press it close to her chest once again as she shuffled around the line that had formed behind her. She stayed close to the edge of the shop to avoid knocking anyone down again.

The woman fell behind in step her, her long stripe of a shadow sliding across the walls of shivering petals and leaves, shoes clattering against the dirt dusted black and white tile. Liz leaned the edge of her shoulder against the door to hold it open for the small woman who was still humming, the tune now picking up in rhythm. 

"So, just take me to wherever your car is." She leaned away from the door once the woman was through it, scurrying away before it slammed closed on her. The _swoosh_ sent a cool gust of air against her back that rippled her T-shirt and made goosebumps ghost across her arms.

"It is just over this way. I usually park in strange spots because I'm not terribly good at parking, you see." The woman sighed and looked down. She felt a bit of pity for the little woman. She seemed rather alone, and she'd come all the way out her just to get herself a bouquet. Maybe she was someone like Liz--someone tired of the emptiness of her home and just wanted to brighten it up a bit.

"Well, that's okay. As long as you ever get yourself to wherever you're going, that's what counts, right? I'm impressed you're so independent at your age." She screwed her eyes closed, her stomach knotting. Her fingers tightened around the pot. "Sorry, I didn't mean to sound rude. I just really admire people your age that can do whatever they want."

The woman let out a gentle, whistling laugh. "Oh, don't worry, dear. I understood what you meant. You're right--it is unfortunately not common for women my age to be able to accomplish the things they want to, but I suppose I get along well enough."

"Well, it sure looks like it, er--" she paused, realizing she didn't know the woman's name.

"Miriam." She swiveled her head over her narrow shoulder to glance at Liz. 

"I'm Elizabeth, but you can call me Liz if you want." She typically preferred strangers to simply call her by her full name, but when it came to someone that looked like Miriam, she felt that a more personable epithet felt more natural. 

"Elizabeth," she said, quiet, rolling her name in her mouth. "It's a lovely name. You shouldn't let people call you anything else. It is dignified for a lovely lady such as yourself. Liz is so... _sharp_."

The woman's comment pricked her. In all honesty, that's why she saved "Liz" for the people that knew her. _That's_ who she was, not "Elizabeth". Elizabeth was all dignity and soft edges, something gentle. An ancient name for a suppressed era. Liz was fire and hard edges, bite and bluntness. If anyone truly knew her, they knew that "Liz" was the essence of who she was. 

"Well, you can call me what you want," Liz finally said, able to push down any irritation she felt.

"Elizabeth," Miriam said again. But the way she said it this time wasn't as quiet. She said it like she was clamping her teeth down on it, claiming it.

And that's when she felt a  stab against the back of her neck. It e cold and thin, pricking into her vein. Just like the jab of a needle. 

No, not just _like_ a needle. It _was_ a needle. Her legs trembled, gray beginning to edge into her vision. Her fingers began to peel away from the bottom of the pot. As her vision swam, she saw that they were no longer in a parking lot. Somehow, without her noticing, Miriam had lead her into a narrow alley with brick walls stretching up to scrape at the thick, creamy underbellies of the clouds that had gathered in the night sky.

The buildings were so close together, she felt like she was clamped between them. Her legs kept shivering, going numb.

"What--" she tried to say, but her tongue felt like a lead weight in her mouth. 

Her legs went out from under her and she slammed down onto her side, ceramic pot exploding across the pavement. 

"Elizabeth." And this time the name had become a chant swimming around her as she tried to claw inside her brain and shred the fog that was seizing her mind. 

Thick hands--male, some part of her mind guessed--hovered over her, ready to shove a black bag over her head. The hands grew blurred as if she was viewing them through thick, murky water.

But still, right as the canvas was shoved over her head, she clamped her jaws down on the hand and closed her teeth down through the bag. The iron tang of blood oozed through the canvas fibers, and she felt a flicker of satisfaction through the sea of terror that was beginning to swim through her body. Someone gave a muffled grunt and jerked their hand out of the vice of her jaws.

And then, her vision went black, her head plunged beneath heaving waves. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, strap on your seatbelts, because we're headed straight into Angstville.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I just wanted to say that I appreciate each and every one of the comments and kudos I've received on this story. I'm really enjoying writing this fic, and every time I post a chapter I'm excited to share it, so thank you to everyone to whatever form of support you've given my little story! It means a lot to me.

_"My little bird with throat so red,_

_Sings sorrow, sorrow, sorrow;_

_He sings to the little dove that's dead."_

_-Jorinde and Joringel_

* * *

 

"I'm disappointed. I brought this to you because of your discretion and my belief in your ability to quickly find Dawn, but so far you've given me nothing." Bruno's thick mouth pulled down into a frown, the wide oak desk a barrier between them.

But it was more than mere disappointment, and Red knew it. He wore the worry and the grief in broad, severe strokes across his face--his entire body, really. His shoulders sagged more than they used to, as if bending beneath the weight of what he bore at the moment. The bags beneath his eyes had become thicker and browner, the concern bruising his eye sockets, and the whites of his eyes themselves were spider webbed by reddened veins. Red entirely understood the sort of rampant fear and concern that must have been wracking Bruno, but by wearing his anguish so clearly upon his countenance, he had left a gaping hole in his armor that could allow enemies to drive a spear into his size and cripple him. 

That was the trick--let yourself feel the agony and let it drive you, but don't let anyone see it.

"You know that I am doing the _very_ best that I can with the resources that I have. Bruno, honestly, I do sympathize with what you are going through. I want you and Dawn to be reunited as soon as possible, but you must realize that the five other missing women have not been found in the year that they've all been missing. I understand that this is _immeasurably_ difficult to deal with, but I have only been searching for a few days. It will take time," he said, keeping his tone measured and calm. With situations like this, it was best to lead with delicacy to keep a desperate man from exploding and sabotaging all the pieces that had carefully been set in place. 

"Do not speak to me about patience when she could be dead in a ditch or chained up in someone's basement being--" Bruno's nostrils flared, hand convulsing against the arm of the chair he had been gripping. He loosened his hold and laid his blunt fingers flat against it.

"There is no reason to believe that she is dead, nor is there necessarily a reason to think that she is being ill treated. The woman that was spotted six months ago in the photograph appeared to be healthy by all appearances." That was not completely true, however. Did she look healthy in body? Certainly. But her eyes had been wide, trembling pools of confusion and anxiety in the depths of the photograph as she stood rooted to the ground as a mass of humanity seethed about her. But he needed to placate Bruno, and telling him that would not ease his worries and allow Red to deal with the case as he saw fit.

"That's little consolation, you know," said Bruno, his black eyes flint-like.

"It's the only one I can offer at the moment." He held the mobster's gaze.

"If that's the best you can offer, then maybe I should just let my men work on this." Bruno leaned forward, clasping his hands against the desk, eyelids lowering.

"Yes, and if you do, what do you think might happen? Bruno, your men are only effective in certain situations. Deadly? Oh yes. Delicate? Hell no. They make a mess like there's no tomorrow. Save them for knocking out your competition or shooting the kneecaps of someone that betrayed you. Are you willing to jeopardize Dawn's safety by sending in your gorillas to handle a situation best solved primarily through wit as opposed to being solved primarily through brass knuckles and illegal firearms?" Dawn was his number one concern and if Red could appeal to that, he was fairly certain that Bruno would briefly be able to see through the haze of his own heartache driving him to irrationality.

Bruno ground his teeth, rectangular jaw working from side to side as tasted the contents of the argument that had just been presented to him. It seemed that he was pleased with the flavor, because he settled back against the chair and crumpled back into himself, the heat in his eyes gone.

"Fine," he said, voice a gruff whisper between bared teeth.

"I'll get her back and when I do, my _goodness_  what a party we'll have to celebrate, just like the one two years ago--oh, when was it--August? October? I can barely remember. But then, I do always say that a hazy memory and the aftertaste of Bollinger on one's tongue is always a _magnificent_ indicator that one had an _extraordinarily_ grand time." Red grinned as he rose from his chair, hoping that painting the image of a hopeful future to come would give Bruno something else to hold onto besides gnawing over the dismal present until his jaw was sore and his teeth were broken and bleeding. 

His mouth twitched, eyes dimly flickering like nearly dead embers briefly prodded into putting off a little more heat as his mind brushed up against the glittering, hedonistic scenario. "I don't think I'd want it to be _exactly_ like that night, especially considering what you did to the car."

"Are you still sore about that? I gave you the money you needed to repair the damages. At least nothing happened to the leather." 

"Don't remind me," Bruno said, bobbing his head as he laughed through his nose. "You better leave before you make me change my mind." And though he smiled as he said it, Red could sense that there was still some edge behind the statement. It was time to leave before he suddenly changed his mind and refused to let him work on the case on his own terms.

"You will be contacted the instant I learn anything significant." He tugged against the lapel of his jacket, pulling it closer to himself as he turned his back on the expanse of the expensive, polished desk. Behind him, Bruno grunted something in his throat that sounded like an agreement.

Red walked to the open door where Dembe stood with his arms crossed, a solid statue that had overseen the meeting now coming to life as the discussion had come to a close. They walked to the car in thoughtful silence as he turned over the previous conversation in his mind. Bruno's mood was erratic, tossed to and fro by the tide of his grief, but ultimately Red hoped that appealing to Dawn's safety would anchor down his emotions and keep him from making any rash decisions.

Once he slipped into the backseat of the car and he and Dembe were on the road, he crossed his arms and sighed. "Well, I think that was generally successful, but we'd best keep an eye on him to be certain he doesn't make any foolish moves."

In the reflection of the rear view mirror, Dembe's head nodded. And then, he was aware of it--how the mood of silence had shifted from thoughtful into something heavy and thick, like walking into a wall of heat that he hadn't expected.

The car came over a dip in the road, vehicle bouncing, tossing him an inch to the side. Tires scraped against a skiff of gravel, pounding his shoulders against the car seat.

"Dembe, what is wrong?" he said, voice low.

In the mirror, his eyes flicked to Red. "It's about Elizabeth."

And just like that, with those three words, it was like someone had wrapped a rope around his heart and had begun to tighten it. The edge of his mouth twitched as he ran an index finger over the sleeve of his jacket. "What happened? Is she hurt? Is she safe? Is she--" But he cut himself off short with a slow inhale. He needed to do his best to remain calm if he was to analyze the situation, but one half of him was screaming, _There is no possible way to stay calm, not when it involves_ her _safety._

"Earlier this morning her car was found empty in the parking lot of a flower shop, and in the ally nearby there were signs of a...struggle. Her shoe prints and someone else's." Dembe spoke slowly and carefully, choosing each word so that it would inflict as little damage as possible, but so that they would still tell the truth.

But no matter how he chose to phrase it, each word cut into him, slicing a little deeper each time, and by the end of his explanation, Red felt like he was steadily bleeding. She'd been taken before, and every time it happened there was that voice in the back of his head saying, _What if she doesn't make it out alive this time? She would be dead, and you would be too. You would be utterly destroyed._

He pressed his teeth together, keeping himself collected becoming harder with each second. "Whose shoe prints? Is there video of who took her?"

"I don't know about the video, but..." Dembe paused again, eyes closing for a moment with the realization that there was no kind way to say whatever he needed to. "The prints seem to match those that were found at three of the abductions connected to Dawn's disappearance."

* * *

 

The dark walls of the Post Office were an obsidian cage. He wanted to go out into the world and hunt down whoever had taken her, but he knew that this would take calculation and planning. It would take finesse of piecing together clues until an image began to emerge, not charging off blindly into Virginia with a gun clutched in his warm palm. 

Still, he couldn't help but feel an itch inside of him to do something more than stand in front of monitors.

"This is all the footage we could find of her," Aram said, his voice tight, somewhere between worry for Lizzie and fear for what Red might potentially do if he didn't bring up the right information. 

"There is _no_ footage of the woman's face that was with her?" he stared up at the grainy security footage. There was Lizzie's curving shape as she walked toward the door and held it open for a moment with her shoulder, the brittle wisp of a woman walking out before Lizzie followed in her footsteps. 

"I'm afraid so." Aram's shoulders tensed beneath his white shirt, keeping his eyes on the monitors like a dog trying to avoid the gaze of its displeased owner.

"Her abduction doesn't completely match the others. She wasn't from Virginia, nor is she currently in any relationship that I know of. The kidnapper must've somehow known she was investigating the case," Samar said, eyes glancing from the monitors to Red.

"She could've been with someone and we didn't know about it," Donald offered. 

Red narrowed his eyes. "She wasn't." 

"She's been distant lately," Samar said, tentatively approaching the suggestion, weighing and considering it. "We might not have known."

" _I_ would have known." At his certainty, Samar and Donald exchanged a glance between them.

Even if she had been trying to hide it, he would have known. There would have been a shift within her, a loosening of her body, a a warm glow within her eyes, a hard, sharp initial evasion of the truth if she suspected that he knew.

No, he would know if Elizabeth Keen was in love.

She wasn't.

She was broken and alone, fighting against the winds and the breakers of her trauma, struggling to get to safety, but shying away when she was offered a raft. Lizzie didn't typically reach out on her own when she was in distress. She folded inward, locking herself away until someone knocked on the door enough and found the right magic words that would make her let them inside. Then she turned outward, her broken edges sharp and ragged. But he wasn't afraid of them. He never had been. He'd spent his life among sharp things, and his own edges were more jagged and rough than hers were, weathered by years of criminality. So when he saw her edges, he did not flinch away. He only thought that he wished he could have prevented her from looking anything like him at all. 

Donald raised his head and opened his mouth as if a light had suddenly been flicked on. "Maybe she wasn't in a relationship, but the kidnapper thought that she was. You said that the kidnapper takes women away from boyfriends that are abusive or dangerous."

Something twisted inside of him. Red didn't like where Donald was taking this. "Yes, that is true."

Before Donald could say something that made Red want to strangle him, Samar slid into the conversation. "You two were everywhere on the news, and there was speculation that you might have been romantically involved. It's possible that the kidnapper believed the rumors and thought they were removing her from a dangerous relationship."

She hadn't assigned blame. She hadn't said that it was his fault, only presented the facts. No, she wasn't blaming him, but there was a part of him that supplied the blame that she had avoided. _If it hadn't been for you_ , it said, _this would not have happened._

"...Yes, that could be a possible motive." 

"Ressler and I will go the crime scene and see if there's anything else that we can find," Samar said. And though Donald's jaw tensed at her speaking for him, he didn't argue. 

"Very well. Good luck on that," he said, lifting his eyebrows and pursing his lips. Samar was effective, but she would be trailed by Donald, and he was often bound to hamper the efforts of even the best investigation through his hard-line, by the book tactics. 

And with that, they left, leaving him to watch the footage of Lizzie move repeatedly across the screen, her faint, ghostly shape pushing open the doors on loop,  forced to relive of those last, blissfully ignorant moments within the confines of black and white pixels, trapped inside digital amber.

"Mr. Reddington?" Aram's voice was small and distant. 

He stood in silence for another moment, face pale against the glow of the monitors, drinking in Lizzie's vague features. He finally turned around the acknowledge his name. "What?"

"What will you do to them? I mean--to whoever took Agent Keen." Aram's dark eyes were pinched. 

The better question was what wouldn't he do? Only a few weeks after he had formally met Lizzie, he had been willing to push a man into a vat of toxic, bone devouring chemicals without a second thought. That had been for her protection. Anything that was necessary to ensure that she was brought safely he would be willing to do--no matter how it further shriveled up his heart.

"I will do whatever is necessary."

"That's what I thought," Aram looked off, seemingly at war with what he wanted to say next. "That's good, though."

"Yes, it is."

Aram did not have the stomach for the things Red had to do, but there was still a fierce willingness within him to protect Lizzie. The way he had released her from the Box was proof enough of that. True, he was still a skittish man that was more comfortable fighting with his hands clutched around a keyboard than with his finger curled around the trigger of a gun, but that loyalty that he pinned on Lizzie was worth a considerable amount. 

"Aram." He stepped away from the monitors and loomed over the desk that the other man sat at. Aram looked like he wanted to shift away. And several months ago he might have, but it seemed he might have started to become somewhat desensitized to Red's presence. 

"If you find anything out about Lizzie, I want you to tell me before them." His eyes flashed to the closed, mustard yellow doors of the elevator. It wasn't a threat, but it wasn't a choice either.

"Ah, okay. I mean, _yes_. I will do that." Aram nodded with a nervous smile.

"Good! That's excellent to hear." Red laid a firm hand on his shoulder, and his muscles were tense beneath Red's palm. A bit less nervous than he once was, perhaps, but he still had a ways to go. He had no need to frighten Aram, but his loyalty to Lizzie combined with his apprehension towards Red didn't hurt anything either. "I'll be in touch."

At Aram's nod, he shifted his hand off of his shoulder and shoved it into his coat pockets, turning on heel toward the elevator. The itch inside of him had only grown, and he was eager to escape the pressing walls of the Post Office and breath in the dirty city air.

And if he was lucky, he'd catch the scent of her abductor on the breeze. 

The elevator trembled as it jerked up to the world above.

It was time to hunt. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this, a one-shot AND a new chapter all in one day? Yes, that's right. Writing fic is the right way to celebrate the end of the work week.

_"Now the sun set; the owl flew into a bush, and immediately an old, bent woman came out of it; (...). She muttered to herself, caught the nightingale, and carried her away in her hand."_

_-Jorinde and Joringel_

\--

When she awoke, her head felt like lead, and her tongue was limp and dry, sticking to the roof of her mouth. At first, Liz only remembered scattered remnants of the night before, her memory like an old silent film reel that had degraded, the images jumping from one moment to the next, leaving her to guess what was happening.

She remembered this:

Slick, wet leaves shaking beneath fluorescent overhead lights, the scent of flowers against her nose, so sweet that she felt sick. And then, a woman, seemingly frail and withering beneath the weight of her years as Liz helped her shove a mountain of bills and change into her purse.

And then--

The icy prick of a needle at the back of her neck, bag over her head, the salt of blood dripping into her mouth and seeping between the gaps in her teeth and staining them _red red_  as she bit into her abductor.

Once she remembered the blood, that's when all the fragments came together. Her eyes snapped open, skin on fire against an unfamiliar blanket and mattress. She was staring up at a smooth, white ceiling with cream trim, her head pressed against a foreign pillow. Shifting her head to the side, her cheek pressed against the pillow as she swept her gaze around the remainder of the room.

It wasn't really a room. If anything, it was more of a box meant to keep its occupant inside . There were no furnishings aside from the bed that she lay on, and the carpet and walls were off-white as if the room had been decorated by someone who thought that the color scheme of a hospital was inviting. There were no windows, and the only light that permeated the room came from a light bulb that had been embedded in the ceiling, bleaching her skin and emphasizing the blue rivers of her veins. There was a door directly across the room from where she lay. There was a small, covered slot at the bottom of it, only wide enough for a thin tray of food to be slid through.

It was probably locked, but there was no reason not to check it for weaknesses. She pressed her hand against the mattress and slid up, a thin, blue sheet falling away from her body to lie crumpled across her calves.

Her _bare_ calves.

She was no longer dressed in the jeans and sweatshirt she'd worn to run out to the flower shop. For a moment, she simply stared at the line of the yellow dress hem that sat against her knees, the fact that someone had undressed her and touched her while she was unconscious slowly sinking into her mind. Her fingers curled around the sheet, hand clenched so hard that her fingernails dug into her palm even through the fabric. The desire tear the dress off and shred it between her hands and throw it in a ripped heap surged within her. It didn't matter that she would be naked and cold, the only thing that mattered is she wouldn't have some strange piece of clothing on her body to remind her that someone had willingly removed her clothing. What if they--

But no. There were no signs of that.

"Elizabeth."

Her fingers curled tighter around the sheet as the thin voice wavered through the wood of the door. It was that little woman. That voice had seemed so pitiful last night when Miriam had been bemoaning her poor parking skills. How could she have been so idiotic? Why was it last night, of all nights, that she had tried to let down her defenses when her paranoia would actually have served her well?

"I hope you're awake, dear, and if you're not, I'm sorry to roust you, but it's time for me to explain some things to you," Miriam said, each word gentle, as if she was speaking to a beloved grandchild rather than a woman she was keeping locked in a room.

"That would be great," Liz hissed out between locked teeth. She kicked the sheets off of her and pressed her palms against the mattress, launching herself from the bed as she marched toward the door, heels slamming into the carpet. She wished that it was concrete so that the slap of her feet sounded like the crack of a gun. "Maybe you can start with trying to explain to me why you kidnapped me."

There was a thick silence for a moment, and she thought Miriam might have left, somehow insulted by the belligerent tone from a woman that she seemed to believe should act meek and fainting. But then there was a sigh, wheezed through old lungs.

"I did not _kidnap_ you Elizabeth. I saved you, and it even wasn't actually me that physically did saving. It was Zachiel you can thank for that."

For a moment, she didn't register the strange name. Instead, her mind latched onto Miriam's insistence that she needed "saving", and as her mind turned the new piece of information over, she realized who this woman was.

"You're the one. You were the one that abducted Dawn Abato and the other five women." She pushed her hand against the doorjamb to keep herself upright, legs shaking at the epiphany. 

Another sigh. "Elizabeth, _as I said,_ I didn't abduct you or Dawn, I saved you."

"I don't know how you knew where I would be, but I assume that you studied me in order to decide to "save" me." She slashed air quotes even though she knew Miriam couldn't see them. Even though her defiance was private, the sarcasm felt good. But her words were more than just a weapon. If she could try to connect to Miriam in some way, perhaps she could simply talk her way out of the situation. "But if you and Zachiel--or whoever helped you--had done your research well enough, you would've known I'm not in a relationship, and I don't need to be saved from anyone."

From the little Liz had been able to gather from her conversation with Miriam, it was clear that she wasn't a crazed psychopath. She had her own twisted form of ethics and empathy, and perhaps if she understood that Liz's background didn't match her motives for taking the other women, she would release her. 

"You don't need to lie to me. I know that women can be absolutely blinded by love and you might feel the need to justify your relationship, but I am not here to judge you, only to help you and transform you into something magnificent." Her voice had shifted from gentle into a wistful.

"I'm not in love," Liz simply stated, eyes level with the door as if she could hold Miriam's gaze. Perhaps if she kept pursuing this line of reasoning she could ultimately persuade Miriam into her way of thinking.

"Oh my." Miriam gave a trilling laugh. "Yes, you are. You don't think that I couldn't tell from the news footage? You and Raymond Reddington were the closest thing I've ever seen to a modern day Bonnie and Clyde."

She took a step back as if she had been punched in the gut. She'd heard the speculation before--that Red had helped her because they were engaged in some sort of a relationship, and she didn't doubt that there would be discussion years after their run time on the run about why he had helped her. But they had simply been abstract rumors that she had laughed over when she'd heard them. If only the truth about her partnership with Red was as simple as that. It wasn't a romantic relationship, but it wasn't simply a formal, stiff agreement between an FBI agent and a criminal informant. Their partnership had never been as simple as that, nor would it ever be. Whatever she and Red were was a complicated knot that she had no idea how to untie.

 "Reddington? No...he's not--" she fumbled, trying to find a convincing, logical argument. "We were never _involved_ with each other. He's..." 

If she couldn't explain what he was to herself, then how was she expected to convince this woman of the nature of their partnership? "He's a friend and ally," she finished. The word didn't feel fully true in her mouth, but it wasn't a lie either. Ally was too sterile a term, and friend was far too simple a word. 

"I know that relationships like this can put otherwise rational, gentle women into a state of denial," said Miriam, her tone like that of a psychologist explaining their diagnosis. 

She wanted to laugh at the assertion that she was gentle. If Miriam had really been paying close enough attention to the news, she would've seen that gentle was not something Liz often was anymore. 

"Listen, maybe you did save those other women, and that's admirable." She didn't believe that for one second, but she needed to continue trying to establish some sort of camaraderie with Miriam. "But I'm not like them. Like I said, I'm not even _with_ anyone right now, much less a man like Reddington. He's useful, but I would never be with someone like him, especially not after everything that he's done."

Perhaps if she disparaged Red, that would keep reeling Miriam in over to her way of thinking. Still, it somehow felt wrong to insult him to a stranger after all that they had been through in the past several months, even though he could drive her up the wall and willfully keep important information from her.

The space behind the door was silent again, but she somehow knew that her captor still stood behind it, weighing each word she had spoken for its validity. 

"You don't think you deserve better," Miriam said, quiet and a bit sad. "I think that's why you've pursued this affair with Reddington. I don't know everything about your background Elizabeth, but from what I understand you haven't had an easy life, and you have made some choices that were less than ideal--especially recently. But that's not who you are. I can tell that who you really are is a kind woman who wouldn't normally do the things that you've done. You're with Reddington because you think that you and he are the same, and after all your sins you deserve nothing else but a man who will encourage and bring out the worst in you."

Liz pushed down a sigh and tried to steady her breathing against the wall of pressurized heat that rose in her chest. She rolled back on her heals and crossed her arms, pressing them against her rib cage. "Miriam," she said, doing her best to mimic the woman's gentle tone, "even if I had never met Reddington, I would probably be the same as I am now. I still joined the FBI and worked as a field agent, and that's not the sort of profession that people choose if they are opposed to violence of any sort."

She didn't argue against Miriam's assertion that she was kind, because she didn't know whether or not she was anymore. She had been kinder once, she thought. And she wasn't incapable of it now, but the things she had faced and the things she had done had made her kindness a rarer beast within her heart than it once had been. 

"We have some rules here," the voice behind the door said suddenly. 

She blinked at the sudden change of subject. She needed to steer the conversation back in her favor if she could. "Excuse me?"

"There are house rules here. They are in place in order to make the women here become the best versions of themselves that they can be. If you follow the rules, you will be rewarded accordingly, and if you don't you will be deprived accordingly." Now Miriam's tone had become similar to that of an old school teacher weary of her student's behavior.

"Listen, I can't follow your rules if I don't know what they are, and besides that, I don't _need_ to follow them because I don't belong here." Liz dug a canine tooth into her lower lip, fingers rubbing at the smooth fabric of her dress. If she had had any control in the conversation earlier, it had been yanked away from her.

"One of the rules is telling the truth, and another is not openly rebelling. I'm afraid that because you've broken both these rules..." she sighed. "Oh Elizabeth, I take no pleasure in doing this, I _really_ don't, but if I don't reward or deprive accordingly, then there will be no order here, don't you see that? So I'm afraid that you're not going to get any dinner tonight."

"Just _listen_ \--!" Liz snapped out, knuckles slamming against the door, teeth jarring together, any semblance of patience gone. Her shoulders heaved with deep, burning breaths pulled from the depths of her lungs. Her fingernails scraped like claws against the wood of the door as she unfurled her fist.

But Miriam didn't acknowledge her outburst. "I'll slip a list of the formal rules through your door slot tomorrow. There's a door to a bathroom in your room if you need it, it's against the back wall."

A bathroom? Maybe there was something in it that she could use to escape. Maybe a toothbrush she could somehow sharpen into a lock pick, maybe a mirror that she could break and give herself a shallow injury with a shard of glass so that Miriam would be motivated to come into the room to treat her wounds. And then she would be able to blast past that heap of bones and--

"But before you get any ideas, there's nothing in there that you can use to escape or hurt yourself," Miriam said, as if she had been reading her thoughts. 

Of course she hadn't been, but she'd been kidnapping women for a year, and she'd probably been planning even longer to house them here, so of course she would've taken every precaution to keep Liz in this prison. She could still bash her head against the wall to try to get Miriam to come in, but that would be a foolish idea. She needed to keep herself--especially her mind--relatively unharmed if she was to escape. 

Behind the barrier of the door, Miriam's footsteps clacked away, leaving her alone in her isolated box like an insect trapped until its captor decided to sneak a glance at their prize. For a moment she remembered the first time she'd seen Red inside his glass prison. Somehow, even with his arms strapped down to a chair and being scrutinized by a gaggle of the FBI's finest, he'd kept an air of calm and control the whole time.

She had done her best to manipulate the situation to her advantage, but she didn't have twenty-five years under her belt of tugging people's strings to advance a criminal empire.

She turned toward the bed, glancing at the legs, hoping for a moment that they were not bolted to the floor and that she could somehow use the bed to ram the door down. But of course Miriam had the foresight not to let that happen. Slightly tarnished bolts winked up at her from the bed's legs. But she still reveled for a moment in the fantasy shoving her entire weight against the bed and using it to smash through the door in an explosion of splinters.

Liz walked back over to the mattress where she collapsed down on her side, suddenly feeling hollowed out. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to block out the light overhead. She hadn't seen any light switches in the room, so there must've been some sort of switch that only Miriam or Zachiel had access to. She lifted her arms up over her head to grasp the top of the pillow and slip it out from under her head. Cramming it over her face, she inhaled, nostrils filled with the faint scent of lavender dusted over the pillow cover.

She needed rest if she was going to think properly, but how could she expect herself to be clear headed when she was trapped in an unknown house in an unknown location with the lights turned on and no food?

But that was the point, wasn't it? She wasn't meant to think clearly. She was _meant_ to be thrust into a disorienting, frightening situation, deprived of what her body needed in order to make her fully reliant on her captors and bend her mindset to fit their desires.

For a moment, her mind turned to the memory of sleepless night spent in college poring over cases of Stockholm Syndrome and brain washing. Liz very much doubted that Miriam had paged through the same dense textbooks that painfully described those cases, but it was apparent to her that Miriam had nevertheless separately stumbled upon techniques that made her prisoners change their behavior in order to match her own wants. Liz needed to change tactics. 

This wasn't about arguing in order to escape--this was about complying to gain her freedom.


	6. Chapter 6

_"At last he dreamt one night that he found a blood-red flower, in the middle of which was a beautiful large pearl; that he picked the flower and went with it to the castle, and that everything he touched with the flower was freed from enchantment; he also dreamt that by means of it he recovered his Jorinde."_

_-Jorinde and Joringel_

* * *

Rain drops trembled against the tinted window of the car, the places where the droplets had rolled down the window leaving zigzagging lines through the opaque field of condescension that had built up on the glass. The drizzling downpour turned the parking lot into a slick lake, the surface of it only disrupted by darker patches where cracks had been mended. The flower shop sat as a squat sentinel against the rain, red reflection of its neon sign broken up in puddles where water had become trapped by dips in the ground. 

Red drummed his fingers against the leather skin of the seat, his tapping an echo to the steady rhythm of rain against the car roof. With minimal effort, he'd been able to press Aram to give him his own copy of the surveillance footage in order to personally comb through it. Donald and Samar had talked to the cashier that had been working at the flower shop that night, but evidently it had been packed, and in between simpering apologies, the cashier said that he had not seen the face of the old woman from the footage, but he did at least remember the woman following Lizzie out.

He was not about to let that be the end of that. The FBI must have missed something, he'd thought. They always did.

And while he was going through the footage for the umpteenth time, lo and be hold, just as he had predicted, there were a few seconds of video that perhaps represented a sliver of hope. Admittedly, the action in those several seconds would have been easy to miss. Heads and shoulders bobbed and writhed around shelves of greenery, bumping and jostling into each other. But for a moment there had been a small gap in the human herd, and he'd seen it:

The back of the same little, thin woman briefly stopping a female store employee and saying something to her before walking away back into the crowd. Someone _had_ seen her face to face.

So now he sat in the darkness waiting for the employee to arrive on her shift. He exhaled and ran the pad of his thumb over the bottom of his lip. Leather squeaked as Dembe's head shifted against the headrest of the driver's seat to glance at him.

Red's gaze flicked up to the rear view mirror. 

 _Patience_ , Dembe's eyes said.

 _"_ I am doing the best I can to remain patient given the circumstances," he said. It wasn't a necessary thing to voice, and they both knew that. He was saying it for his own benefit. If he reminded himself that he had to remain careful, perhaps that would do something to quell the animal in his breast that urged him to act without forethought. 

"She's here." Dembe turned his head, profile washed artificial crimson by the neon sign.

Across the parking lot, a medium-built girl walked toward the flower shop, dressed in the green vest that seemed to be required for all shop employees. Her footsteps kicked up shimmering arcs of dark water. She pushed her shoulder against the shop door, sending out a wavering slash of light across the ground. 

His thumb slipped down from his mouth to rest on the handle of the car door, hand hot against the metal. But despite his urge to shove the door open immediately, he let ten minutes pass. He couldn't frighten her by making her think he was following her in. 

His eyes were affixed to the watch on his wrist as each second of time that was swept away by the thin, ticking clock hands. 

He pushed the door open and slid out of the car, rain now a glittering curtain around him as it thundered against his hat and slid off the sides of its brim. As he walked to the great, glowing box of the flower shop, Dembe followed slowly behind him.

When he entered, he saw why Lizzie had wanted to come. It was a mess of colors and scents. The smell of every flower had combined to create a heady aroma that was overpowering in its sweetness--it was made of the promise of a vibrant, glowing spring field, so perfect that it could only be seen in heavily doctored travel brochures. 

It was chaotic and energetic, full of unconcealed life, just like Lizzie. If she had made it home with an item from the shop, it likely would've been out of place in her dull little apartment, but it would have perfectly matched the owner of the plant. 

But she hadn't made it home, because someone had snatched her. 

And they had taken her because he had urged her to leave the apartment. 

If she hadn't listened to him encouraging her to go buy something, she'd probably still be in her apartment burning her dinner, eating its ashen carcass while she bobbed her head and hummed along to a kitschy tune from the 80s.

He shoved the thought aside and searched the shop for the girl. It wasn't as busy as the night captured on  surveillance, but there were still about ten other people shuffling around and pausing in front of plants and frowning at price tags. After another moment of glancing about, he finally found the girl standing behind a corner counter fluffing an arrangement, eyes narrowed on the flowers spilling out of a thin vase. Her frizzy brunette hair was pulled back into a quick, sloppy braid probably done in a rush before work, and her nails were decorated with a polka dotted pattern. 

Shifting his face into a smile, he stepped up to the counter. "What _lovely_ flowers," he said to her, watching as her fingers smoothed a leaf. "Alstroemeria, aren't they?"

"Most people would just call them Peruvian lilies, but you're right. Plant aficionado, huh?" She paused in her arrangement duties to give him a practiced smile. No doubt she wanted to finish what she was doing, but her customer service training was urging her to do otherwise.

"Oh, no. I just had a friend go on and _on_ about these particular flowers. She was going to have them for her wedding arrangement, you see. Somehow, I'm not sick of them even though she had enough at the reception for a tiny botanical garden. _Gosh_ , her poor bridesmaid Clarice, though." He screwed his lips to the side. " _Horrible_ allergies, but she didn't say anything about it because she didn't want to upset her friend."

"They are very popular for weddings, though this arrangement isn't for that occasion. Um--" the girl paused, laying her hands flat on the counter. "Did you want some? There's more in the back if you want me to show you." 

"Oh yes, that would be nice." Red threw a glance over his shoulder. Dembe was a few feet away, pretending to look particularly interested in a tiny cactus in a pot. They met eyes for a moment and nodded at each other.

"Thank you very much for doing this," he said, glancing at her name tag, "Mary Ann."

"It's no problem at all." She said, leading him to the backroom, tossing her braid over her shoulder. 

It was a thin, narrow room lined with shelves that went up almost to the ceiling. It was a wall of the same eclectic greenery that was in the front of the shop, just pressed together in closer quarters. 

Mary Ann took several steps to the right and pushed aside a squat plant with jade leaves to pull over a pot of Alstromeria. "Do you have any questions about what exactly you're looking for?"

"Actually, I do. I'm afraid I haven't been completely honest. I _am_ interested in the lilies--they would be a lovely accent to a coffee table that I possess--but I'm sure you're aware by now that the general vicinity of your flower shop is the scene of a high profile disappearance." 

"You mean that ex-FBI agent that was taken? Listen, Dave already told the authorities everything he knew." She was shifting nervously and glancing toward the back room door that was only open a sliver. It shuddered back an inch with a sudden gust of air as the front door chimed and announced the arrival of a new customer. 

"Yes, but _you_ weren't questioned. This will only take a moment of your time," he said, voice lowering. She was only an innocent caught in the middle of this investigation, but he needed any description of the woman that she had. He didn't want to threaten any more than was necessary, but she wasn't going to give him information if he didn't push for it. 

"They told me not to answer any questions about it unless I knew for sure I'm talking to the right authorities." She swallowed and pressed a hand to the shelf behind her. Her hand curled around a flower pot, the muscles in her arm tensing as she readied herself to throw it.

He shifted his hand in his jacket pocket so that the material of it flapped open, revealing the glint of a gun at his side. Her face went white, skin suddenly slick with sweat that glistened beneath the glowing bars of the overhead lights. "You're not gonna...?" she couldn't make herself finish the sentence. Her pupils were pinpricks. 

"I just want to ask a question." He shifted his jacket closed. 

Her hand slid off of the pot and slapped against her leg. She rubbed her fingers together. "Okay, just please don't do anything to hurt me, okay? I'll answer your question."

"There was a thin, older woman that talked to you the night that the disappearance occurred. She was short and would have come up to your chin, I believe. Would you be able to describe her face to me?" he asked, tone shifting to something that was almost gentle. 

"I can actually draw her if you want. I mean, that might help you, since they do those sketches of suspects on cop shows. That would be better than just a verbal description, right?" She seemed to be making the offer in order to keep herself safe. He took little pleasure in the fear he saw in her eyes, but a sketch _would_ be helpful.

"That would actually be _very_ helpful. Thank you, Mary Ann." 

She nodded rapidly and stepped backwards, only taking her eyes off of him to glance at a small table that was pressed against the wall that had one chair shoved against it. A note pad and pen sat on the top of table, the margins decorated with scribbles. As she walked to the table he followed her, hovering back a bit to give her enough of a buffer between the two of them in order to keep her mind on the necessary task at hand. 

She flipped to the next page and the pen slid off the desk, clattered across the floor and landed at the pointed tip of his shoe. He bent down and picked up the pen, offering it to her. Her wide eyes met his and she swallowed again before reaching out to pinch the end of the pen between two fingers. He gave her a reassuring nod and she slid the pen out of his grip. 

Turning back around in the chair she lowered her head and scooted forward, chair legs whining against the slick floor. Then she began to draw--slowly at first, with hesitant, scratchy lines. But then, her shoulder blades lowered and her lines became less sharp and frantic and began to take on flowing, organic shapes.

He let her draw in silence for a few moments before speaking. "So, you're an artist?" 

"Art major, yeah." She nodded, flicking the pen to turn a line into a crease near the woman's eye. 

"You're quite good. I quite like how you've made her eyes wider in the reflection of her glasses." Red traced an index finger in the air in the shape of the aforementioned glasses and shuffled to the side, tilting his head to watch the drawing take form beneath the scratch of the pen.

"Um, thanks," Mary Ann said, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes. 

Clearly, she wasn't in a particularly talkative mood after being vaguely threatened. And uncharacteristically, he wasn't feeling particularly chatty either, so they simply existed in silence for several minutes as she completed the drawing. Once she was done, she pushed a hand down onto the corner of the page as she carefully tore the paper from the notebook. She turned in the chair and lifted the paper up in the air for him to take.

"Hey, listen," she said when his hands touched the paper. "I hope you find your FBI friend."

He kept his face still and didn't let the tips of his fingers dent the fragile, thin paper. "Thank you."

* * *

The only sound in Lizzie's apartment was the desperate buzz of a fly's wings as it uselessly hurled itself against the window. The entire living space was permeated by the funk of slowly rotting garbage that had no one to take it out for the past day and a half. 

When he had eaten dinner with her, it had bothered him how the apartment had been devoid of her personality, but even her presence had considerably brightened the drab living quarters. Now without her the entire living room felt like a place that had been suddenly and unexpectedly abandoned, a life put on pause. Her moving boxes were still scattered about with items spilling out of their cardboard prisons, and a chair at the kitchen table was pulled out crookedly after she had stood up and forgot to push it in. A plate with the greasy memory of her dinner still smeared across it sat in the sink, a fork laid upside down against the dish's indentation. The fly paused in its suicidal mission to make a lazy path over to the sink, but Red waved a hand to smack before it could drift down to land on the plate. Its body landed,  a lifeless black speck in the middle of the carpet. 

"Her research is here," Dembe said, standing beside the kitchen table, shifting a newspaper off the stack of information that was paper clipped together.

In the examination Red had made of her apartment, he hadn't found any outward indications that someone had been stalking her, so he hoped that her research into the six other abductions might reveal further insight into the identity of the kidnapper that he hadn't been able to uncover.

He walked to the table and as he sat down in a chair in front of the stack, he began to leaf through it. The first page had a blotchy half-circle of coffee, the edges of the circle smudged where Lizzie must have suddenly dragged the mug off of the papers the moment she realized she was staining sensitive information. A faint smile ghosted across his face at thought. 

As he shuffled through the papers, the information he saw was what already told him or what he had found on his own--scant details, barely any evidence at the crime scene. From what he understood, the victims had always been alone before and during the kidnapping--that was one of the things that made Lizzie's capture an anomaly. A large amount of people had seen her before she was snatched. He flipped to another page. 

The page was a small, local newspaper article that had been scanned and printed out. As he flicked his eyes over the words, he realized that the information was _new_. There were some of the same basic details he already knew, of course. The article concerned Amelia Turner, the woman who had been dating a thief that was somewhat notorious to the area. What the article mentioned that other sources seemed to have neglected was that though the bar was not the scene of her kidnapping, that was the last place she had been seen. 

He flicked to the next page. The wall of text curved and bent to make way for a small inset image. For a moment, he hoped that it would be the face of the woman that Mary Ann had drawn for him, but the police sketch inserted into the article was that of a man a few bar patrons said they had seen that seemed to be eyeing Amelia. The face of the man in the sketch was _thick_  in every sense of the word. He had a wide nose and a frowning mouth that curved down into jowls like those of a stern bulldog. A battered newsboy cap sat on his head, shadowing his eyes and the bridge of his nose. 

A bar and a possible suspect. It wasn't much, but it was more than he had had several minutes ago. He carefully folded up the article and slid it into his pants pocket.

"Dembe, I'm afraid that we're going to have to venture into the wilds of Virginia at 2 am for some cheap alcohol and an illuminating conversation."

* * *

It was convenient that the bar had recently closed by the time their several hours journey to Virginia had concluded. While it perhaps would have been more _interesting_ if the bar still had been open when he confronted the owner, in the end it was preferable that the building was empty of patrons, especially given the sense of urgency that surrounded his quest to discover where Lizzie had been taken. There would be plenty of time in the future to cause a scene in a dismal little bar. This wasn't one of those times.

It hadn't been particularly hard for he and Dembe to get into the backroom through the back door. Not that breaking into buildings was particularly hard for them at all, but the out of date locks certainly had aided in making their intrusion that bit easier. 

The owner's car had been parked out front, so it was only a brief matter of time before he heard someone in the backroom and came to investigate. Still, there was no point in letting the opportunity to drink to pass him by. And considering all that had happened in the past day and a half, Red  _really_ needed a drink. A stack of clean glasses sat on a small table in the middle of the room across from a shelf of alcohol. He grabbed a glass from the table and surveyed the selection of spirits that had been presented to him. 

He wrinkled his nose at the offerings, but decided to make do. He grabbed a bottle of whisky off the shelf and glanced toward Dembe, tilting the bottle in his direction, liquid glittering a sick, yellow-brown. "I don't suppose you want any?" he asked.

Dembe distastefully regarded it. "No thank you."

"Suit yourself," he said with a quick shrug and uncorked the bottle, pouring perhaps a little too much into the glass.

Typically, he would leisurely sip and savor his alcoholic beverage of choice, but he wasn't in the mood for that. He was in the mood for something fast and burning that would erase even an ounce of the fear for Lizzie that twisted inside of him.

And when he knocked it back, it did _burn_ , but it did nothing to ease his burden. It just tasted cheap and a bit sour, but somehow the burn had felt good, so he was about to pour himself another glass when the front door of the backroom slammed open. A man with dark blond hair who looked to be somewhere in his thirties stood there for a moment, eyes as wide as golf balls he glanced between Red and Dembe. His narrow mouth twitched.

"You really should invest in better brands, you know. It might be a bit expensive at first, but in the end it would be worth it as you would attract larger crowds and customers with more expensive taste who would be willing to pay for better brands than what you currently have. I'm sorry to say that your current stock is _dreadful_." He narrowed his eyes at the bottle in his hand, shook his head at it, and set it down on the counter.

"Who the hell are you?" the owner asked, spitting out each word as if they tasted rotten.

"Evidently you don't watch the news much or you might know. I suppose I can't _completely_ blame you as the media is a _terrible_ mess these days. It might be for the best that you don't get your information from corrupt, entirely biased sources." He swirled the nearly empty glass in his hand, keeping his eyes on the man whose face was growing increasingly scarlet.

"I don't care if you're the president or the queen, I want you to get out of here," the owner snarled, jabbing a finger in the direction of the exit.

Red lifted the glass and swallowed the skim of foul whisky that lay at the bottom of it. "You've made _such_ a compelling argument you have _almost_ convinced me to leave. But only almost. You see, I'm only here to ask you a question or two. And then I'll leave you in peace with your awful booze collection to contemplate your many and varied questionable choices."

"I'm not answering anything." The owner raised his head, jaw jutting forward, arms across his chest.  

"I think you are going to." As he set the glass down, it clattered against the small table. In the case of Mary Ann and her initial resistance to answering his questions, he'd felt some regret at having to threaten her in order to get the information he needed. He felt none of that regret now as advanced toward the owner who now was baring his teeth like an angry dog.

But dogs were not the same things as wolves. Wolves and dogs were related, but they were entirely separate species, distanced by thousands of years of selective breeding to soften out the harsh, wild urges pounding in their canid hearts so that they no longer hungered for wide, pine rich forests. A dog might snarl as ferociously as any wolf, but they were far more likely to threaten than they were to bite. 

Red curled back his upper lip. Wolves and dogs were related, but they were not the same.

"First, you're going to move your hand away from the gun under your coat. Second, you are going to sit down in the chair," he jerked his head toward a chair that sat at the table. "Third, you're going to answer what I tell you. Understand?"

The owner just stood there for a moment, not giving an answer one way or the other as he defiantly held Red's gaze. The moment trembled, the outcome of the situation ready to dip one way or the other as the man considered what the wisest course of action was.

"Fine," he said took a step back and hurled himself down into the chair's seat. "What do you want to know? Where I have a secret stash of money or something?"

"Oh, nothing so petty as that, I assure you. I merely have an interest in the Amelia Turner case. I believe you spoke to the police after it happened, and I find it incredibly likely that you were unable to tell them anything useful due to their incompetence in knowing what questions to ask." Whether their incompetence was due to lack of funds or simple laziness, when he had read how poorly the police had pursued investigation centering around the bar, he couldn't help but feel resentful.

"What are you, some kinda P.I.?" the man asked, one arm braced around the back of the chair as he craned his neck to look up at Red.

"Not quite. Now then--about Amelia, do you remember her saying where she was going to go after she left the bar? Or perhaps did she mention where she had been prior to coming to your _fine_ ," he gave a withering glance toward the shelf of alcohol once again, "establishment?"

The man sighed, the sleeve of his coat falling over the edges of his knuckles as he ran the ends of his fingers through his hair. "Like I told the police, she said she was gonna go for a walk to clear her head--didn't say where. But--she did said she'd come from restaurant a little while before coming here. She got into an argument with her boyfriend or something, then she came to the bar."

"A restaurant? Do you remember the name of it?" Red put a hand against the table and shifted so that he was face to face with the man.

"I mean, if you give me a minute to think I might remember. Listen, man, it's late--"

"Well, while you have your little think, look at this and tell me if she's a regular or if you remember seeing her there while Amelia was." He reached inside his jacket and pushed Mary Ann's drawing of the old woman over to the owner. 

The man's shoulders hunched as he leaned forward, raising to fingers to rub them against the scruff on his chin, several strands of dirty blond hair flopping into his eyes. "Nah, I don't recognize her at all. But there was this guy--"

"I already know about the guy. Unless you can tell me anything about him that you did not tell the police tell me the name of the restaurant," he leaned forward. " _Now._ "

"Hey, come on, cool it. I'm telling you what you want to know. The place had a fancy French name it was le...um...le mon--?"

"Le Monarque?" He pressed his mouth into a thin line.

"Yeah, that was it! You know the place, huh?" The man raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, I do." 

In fact, he knew the owner and had stopped there one night several months ago while he and Lizzie were on the run. He was not completely certain that that had any connection to her disappearance, but a twinge inside him told him that it was related. He should never have taken her there. He should have chosen somewhere more secluded. He should have--

He stopped himself. He pressed a wide smile to his face that felt more like a grimace than anything approaching friendliness.

"Your cooperation was much appreciated. I'm afraid I must go now, but please _do_ seriously consider changing your stock." He pressed his hands against the edge of the table and slid himself back, leaving the man to blink at the sudden, abrupt ending to their conversation.

Seeing the end to their visit, Dembe headed toward the door, but paused as he saw that Red was stopping beside the glass and bottle of whisky he'd abandoned earlier. 

There was a fine, glimmering sheen against the sides of the bottle where its contents had poured out earlier. He wrapped a hand around the neck of the bottle, tipping a slow stream of amber into the bottom of the glass. Disgusting or not, he needed to obliterate the roiling regret inside of him. 

As he took a swallow, the whisky was acid against his tongue. 


	7. Chapter 7

_"(Jorinde) had been changed into a nightingale, who was singing..."_

_-Jorinde and Joringel_

* * *

What Liz assumed was morning had come. The only indication that she had that any time had passed was the metallic squeal of the door's slot being shoved open. 

She barely recalled falling into some sort of sleep last night. Just as Miriam had probably hoped, her sleep had been fitful--the nightmares had invaded her mind again. But this time, instead of dreaming of her life being taken by shadowy governmental agents, she dreamed of rough canvas against her skin, the fabric invading her mouth, scraping her tongue and scratching the roof of her mouth as she took deep, heaving breaths, struggling to fight against suffocation. She dreamed of lying on the cold ground, flowers falling onto her equally chilled skin, their petals dusting her like a organic snow. And then she had _felt_ her body begin to degrade and decay, skin peeling from bones in crumbling layers as the plants and the earth took her into itself.

As she tried to shove away the disturbing images that still lurked in the back of her skull, she all but ran to the door as the promised sheet of rules was shoved through the slot. Liz pressed her palms to the wood, her hands making a gentle thud to let Miriam know that she was there.

"Miriam, just a moment, please. I wanted to talk to you," she said, keeping her tone quiet and placating. There had once been a time when she was a child and she had been too busy playing to notice that she had run into the middle of the street in front of a car that barely had enough time to stop in front of her, billowing out gasps of dirty fuel from the tailpipe. The acrid scent of exhaust had still been on her tongue as she apologized to Sam for what had nearly happened, her tone low and quavering.

That was the voice she used now--the voice of a somewhat disoriented, apologetic child. She hoped that it would appeal to Miriam.

"What do you want to talk about?" Miriam sounded wary.

"Well, I was doing some thinking last night. You know, about what you said--about my being with Reddington because I don't think I deserve better. And..." she paused for effect, but also because she took some small measure of enjoyment at making Miriam tip between hope and doubt. "I think you're right."

"You do?" The words turned sharply up. It was part question and part incredulity.

Liz wetted her lips and rubbed them together. Was she being too sudden in her epiphany as to be unbelievable? Should she have waited a day or two before beginning to comply with Miriam's wishes? 

"Yes," she began carefully. "I don't know how much research you did on me, but before all of _this_ happened, I was married. Or, well, sort of married. It wasn't technically real since 'Tom Keen' was nothing but an alias." At least she didn't have to invent the resentment that shone through when she talked about Tom. She'd let him help her clear her name, but only because it had been a necessity. Thinking about what he'd done still made fire curl up inside her.

"I couldn't find much on that, but I was aware that you'd had a sham marriage of some sort," Miriam said, sympathetic. 

That was good. If she was at least feeling sympathy, then Liz partially had her hooked on the line. She just needed t keep reeling in carefully.

"Since you take care of women like me, I guess you know that women that leave abusive situations can often have trust issues and extremely low self esteem. I didn't realize it at the time, but that's what had happened to me. After what Tom did, I was lonely and had no self confidence, and Reddington was there..." She paused again, though not for effect. She was simply stricken by how much of what she'd said wasn't a lie.

It was true that after the annulment and her discovery of who Tom was--of _what_  Tom was--she had been in shattered pieces, though she'd refused to admit it at the time. Red had been one of the few, solid, supportive forces in her life, and while she never made a romantic pass at him, there had been times when she'd clung to him both figuratively and literally in the wake of her brokenness and the realization of the horrid things she'd done in the bowels of that ship.

"He was there and it just happened. I wasn't planning on it, but I was empty and I needed something to fill the emptiness and...I've always had a thing for questionable guys too. I dated a few of those before Tom. But when I met Tom, I thought I'd finally become rational about guys. He seemed to normal, stable, and  _sweet_. He seemed good." She swallowed against a sudden knot in her throat. Almost all of that had been true too. As ludicrous and as horrifying as the idea seemed now, she'd thought Tom had been the mythic "One" that all the romantic songs and movies talked about. He had been everything that her string of exes weren't.

"I'm sorry." Miriam's voice was soft.

In other circumstances, she would've felt touched over someone's sympathy at her situation. But right now, she felt a stab of triumph. She had the old woman close to being on her side.

"So after what happened, I felt completely betrayed, especially after I thought Tom and I were the right thing. I just fell back into my old, bad dating habits." She folded her arms and gave a shrug.

"Why are you telling me this now? You wouldn't admit last night that you and Reddington were together." Miriam didn't sound unkind, but she suddenly sounded skeptical again. 

Liz searched for a plausible explanation. "That's because I can't even admit to myself most of the time that we're together. What we are isn't that simple. It's not just we're dating or not. What we are is...I don't know. We are allies--that's not a lie. But he's not my boyfriend, and I'm not his girlfriend. We haven't 'defined the relationship'. It's just that we're mostly allies and sort of friends, but sometimes something less than platonic happens between us. We're...allies with benefits, I guess. Reddington isn't big on conventional relationships." 

"You are ashamed." It was a statement, not a question. It was as if Miriam was so certain in her ability to analyze Liz that she wasn't even giving her the choice of deciding how she felt--she was _telling_ Liz what her emotions were. It made her prickle, but the goal was comply, no matter how much it pained her to do so.

"Yes, I am ashamed. I was an FBI agent--a _criminal_ _profiler_. I was supposed to help catch and put away people like him, not initiate an affair. Another reason I couldn't admit the nature of our relationship to you last night is because I haven't admitted it to anyone before. Sure, people have guessed, but no one knows for certain except you." If she made Miriam feel special about having that confidential piece of knowledge, perhaps it would help in Liz's plan of gaining her confidence.

"But that's part of it, is it not? You've had an unfortunate taste in men, _and_ you became a criminal profiler. You have an attraction to the criminal mind," Miriam said, her voice low and concerned.

She resented the insinuation that she was like some fictional psychiatrist falling for her patient. Like Harley Quinn falling for the Joker--naive and young, not knowing what she was getting herself into, unable to resist his psychopathic glib, superficial charm.

But in the end, it wasn't exactly a completely incorrect observation, was it? There probably _was_ some tie between her taste in men and her fascination with the criminal mind. On her first day at the Post Office during her analysis of herself, she openly admitted that she wanted to relate to and understand the criminal mind. How far of a leap was it between that and being attracted to those with a dangerous, extralegal edge?

"Well, I don't think you're wrong. I haven't really thought about it before that way, but your analysis sounds about right. Maybe _you_ should've become the profiler," she laughed, hoping the false smile was apparent in her voice. Teasing and humor indicated camaraderie. 

"Oh, no. I would never have had the stomach for that sort of work. It's simply that I'm quite good at reading people," Miriam said. Said by someone else, it would've sounded like boasting, but coming from her it was a simple fact. 

"I can tell. Well, anyway...thank you for listening to me. I just wanted to clear some things up." She hoped that Miriam wasn't going to simply leave. She was leaving an opening for the woman to consider what she had said, and if her apparent compliance and flattery had been satisfactory.

"Well, I'm happy that we had this chat. I feel a bit better about the future of our relationship and about the outlook of your progress. I'll be back in a few hours to take you to your new room," she said the last sentence without any sort of grandiosity, but Liz's heart flipped.

"New room?" she echoed.

"Yes," Miriam replied, a smile in her voice. "You've earned it."

* * *

 

Like a sheep unaware of the butcher's blade against its throat that awaited it at the end of its journey, she was being lead blindly down a hallway with a bag over her head and thick, square hands were pressing down against her shoulders, turning her this way and that. Liz tried not to think about how the weave of the bag was so similar to her nightmare of suffocation. The coarse fibers that brushed against her cheeks now felt exactly like the fabric in her dream as her attacker shoved the bag over her head and into her mouth, closing off any promise of air. 

Miriam had returned several hours later to escort her to her new room promised, but what she hadn't said was that she was going to bring Zachiel in tow with a black canvas bag clutched in his blunt fingers. He was a broad, thick man with a mouth that drooped down into somewhere between somber and stern. When he'd looked at her, his watery eyes narrowed a bit, a hand twitching. Her gaze dropped to the twitching hand--it was wrapped in a gauze bandage that was dappled with rusty blotches of dried blood. She had to keep herself from smiling at her handiwork.

 But she was meant to be obedient and gentle, so she'd apologized for the wound. His face hadn't softened, and he didn't even give a grunt of recognition at her words, but at the very least perhaps the apology had been noticed by Miriam. 

Miriam explained that the bag was to be used like blinders for a horse--if she couldn't see, then she wouldn't get spooked and doing something to hurt either her or Miriam and Zachiel. 

But she knew the real reason. It was to prevent her from scoping out the rest of the building for potential signs of weakness that she could later use to escape.

She'd tried not to protest at the use of the bag, but she wasn't able to keep herself from flinching when it was slipped over her face, her heart beginning to race and adrenaline jolting through her system as her mind put her back in the parking lot, collapsing beneath the weight of an unknown sedative. 

As they lead her down the hall, she tried to make note of every turn they made, of any gentle drafts that might indicate a window nearby. They could blind her eyes, but they couldn't blind her senses and her training.

"Here we are," Miriam said from behind her.

She shuffled to a stop and she swayed as Zachiel's bulk bumped against her back, his hands not moving from their spot on her shoulders. She wanted to kick him in the shins, but she stayed where she was, ignoring the twitching muscles in her legs.

"Now, I have a bit of a surprise for you that I didn't want to mention until now." Miriam's footsteps clomped against the floor, coming to stop in front of Liz. She took Liz's slack hands in hers, her fingers cold and slim, a wormy vein pressed beneath Liz's thumb.

"A surprise?" She didn't need anything that could further complicate her planning.

"Yes. You see, I want you to meet someone. She was the first girl we brought here, and she's adjusted _so_ well, despite an...an incident that occurred three months after we saved her. I think you'll like her. She has quite a soothing presence." Miriam patted her hand in a way that was supposed to be soothing, but she wanted to jerk away when she felt the crescents of the woman's fingernails tap against the back of her hand.

"I would be glad to meet her." And she was, in fact. If this girl was the first one taken, she'd been here for a year, and she could have valuable insight that would be of use. 

"Now, this _is_ your room, so she'll be gone after your chat. I just thought that given your earlier distress, a bit of a house warming visit would do you well." Miriam dropped her hands and jabbed a key into the door's lock. It didn't scrape inside, so that meant the lock was well cared for and wouldn't be as easily picked if she had the opportunity. 

Zachiel dropped one hand from her shoulder and pressed the other to the middle of her back to herd her into the room. Her jerked the bag off her head, throwing a spray of dark hair into her eyes, and before she could turn around, the door had been shut and locked again.

"We'll be right outside the door. Just knock when you're ready for your visitor to leave." 

As Liz turned, she saw that the woman sitting down on the bed was the same bewildered, confused woman in the photograph that Red had given her. She had the same long neck and wide, doe-like eyes, but this time she had an air of peace about her, back straight and a line of platinum hair falling over her left shoulder. She swept a hand to the spot beside her, palm flat. "Please, sit down," she said, her voice airy and light.

Liz just stood there for a moment, hands heavy at her sides. She hadn't washed in two days, and she felt like a layer of grime had settled over her skin and embedded itself into her hair, and she was still wearing the dress from yesterday, the cloth now wrinkled from her having slept in it. Beside this delicate, slender woman, she felt like something wild and feral that had emerged from the woods, stinking of mud and musk, with leaves and dirt matted into its fur.

She walked toward the bed, noting that though the room didn't have a window nor any furnishings besides the bed, there was a light switch, and the color palette of the room was a light yellow as opposed to the clinical, harsh white of the room she had woken up in. 

The mattress gave gently beneath her weight as she sat down, and she brushed a hand over the hem of her dress, trying to push out some of the wrinkles. 

"I'm Reagan Dunn," the woman said, pressing a hand to her chest.

"Elizabeth Keen." She jerked a thumb up at herself, hand limply falling back into her lap.

"Miriam says that your first night here was a pretty rough one. I'm sorry to hear that." Reagan's lower lip jutted out.

"Yeah, this was just all really sudden. I'm going to need some time to adjust," she said, bobbing her head. There was no point in denying how odd and disorienting the entire experience was. 

"I understand. It took me _quite_ a while to get used to this place, but once you adjust, it's better than you can imagine. We don't have to worry about anything here, and we're taken care of." She ran a hand through her elfin hair, and it almost shimmered. Liz felt even more misshapen and strange beside her. There was something distant about the way Reagan spoke--as if she had to box up some part of herself in order to believe the words that she was saying. And that was probably the case. In situations like this, people's minds did strange things in order to keep them sane and alive.

"I understand that you escaped," she said, giving a quick glance over to Reagan. She tried to keep her tone casual and conversation, but bringing up the escape was risky. If she betrayed her to Miriam, Liz would have undone all the work that she had done so far in order to make the old woman trust her.

" _Oh_ , _"_ Reagan breathed, for a moment, her cheeks tensing, body rigid as if a coil had been tightened inside of her. "Yes, I did, but that was because I was confused and didn't understand the favor that Miriam and Zachiel had done me."

Liz wanted to get more out of her, but if she kept pressing for more details about the escape, then she surely _would_ become suspicious. "I guess I'm on the path to understanding, then. So...what sorts of things are there to do here? There's not exactly a lot in my room yet." 

"Well, as long as you follow the rules, you'll eventually get more and more privileges and freedom to do things. I have a TV, DVDs, books, and window in my room, and I have a sketchbook and pencils." She smiled at the mention of the art supplies, and the smile was the most real thing that she had done in the entire time Liz had been talking to her. It was a glimpse into who she had been before she was snatched away from her life. 

"That's nice. I'd love to finishing watching The Wire sometime, and it looks like I'll have a lot of time in here to do that." She glanced up and the blank wall, imagining a flat TV mounted there. 

"Oh, well..." Reagan's long fingers ran through her hair again, knotting the white strands around the tips of her fingers. Those hands  _were_ artist's hands. "I'm not sure she'd let you have The Wire. She lets us watch things, but she has to approve them first, and I'm not sure that it would meet her standards." 

That was just another piece of evidence for one of the more subtle isolating and controlling behaviors that Miriam displayed. The woman had learned it somewhere. Zachiel, perhaps? But if anything, she seemed to be the one that told him what to do, not the other way around. So then perhaps she had learned it from someone she had known when she was younger? "I see. Well, anyway, I hope I can watch something soon. I like keeping my mind busy, and I'll probably get bored if I don't have something to engage me." 

"It will give you time to think and adjust. Miriam says it's important to have a lot of time alone with your thoughts before you have any distractions." Reagan dropped her hand again, any sign of nervousness replaced by plastic serenity.

Of course that was part of Miriam's plan. Brainwashed subjects weren't presented with large rewards until they'd complied satisfactorily to their captor's wishes. 

"Well, thank you for talking to me Reagan, I really do appreciate it. I don't have a lot friends, and it's nice to see a friendly face." She took one of Reagan's hands and tried to smile, but a muscle in her lip twitched, protesting the forced action. 

"I'll come visit any time Miriam allows it," she said, eyes shining. Liz's heart twinged for the woman--nothing she'd said were her own wishes or desires, nor were they her own words. It was always what Miriam allowed, what she wanted, what she said, what she let Reagan do. During the year Miriam had been collecting the women, it seemed that Reagan had been her guinea pig pet project, and she'd bent and molded the willowy girl almost perfectly, her fingerprints dotted across Reagan's psyche.

Liz didn't know what she would be like if she had been trapped in the house for a year, but she doubted she would've become so placid. She wouldn't have bent. She would have snapped and shattered willfully let Miriam cut herself on the jagged pieces while trying to put them together into something beautiful.

"I'll see you soon, then." She let go of Reagan's hand and watched her rise, her bare feet almost gliding across the floor as she walked to the door, her white dress swaying with each movement.

She knocked on the door and it jerked open, only open a second long enough for Reagan to exit before it was yanked closed and locked, as if they were afraid Liz was a wildcat that would spring out of the opening and devour them given the chance. 

And they weren't wrong, she supposed. The moment she'd woken up, hadn't she been fantasizing of ways she'd escape? And many of those ways had involved some sort of collateral damage. Half of her was disgusted at her violent desires, no matter how objectively wrong Miriam and Zachiel's actions were. Their form of morality was twisted beyond recognition of anything acceptable, but they had not physically hurt her or the other women as far and she knew, and they were still humans who had rights that deserved a fair hearing and trial after their crimes were discovered. 

But the other half of her snarled and trembled in anticipation of the thought of escaping and hurting one of them. That half was the part that had become restless and active once she'd gone on the run, unsated by the blood of Connolly. It was the ragged part of her that was sick of the lies and the death, of the endless crimes and tragedies she'd seen. It said,  _Don't let them  betray you or take anything more from you. If they try to hurt you, if they even_ think _of hurting you, hurt them first._ It was the creature that had made her chain Tom up in that ship.It was the primal, dark thing that day in the diner that had made her kick the ribs of the man repeatedly until they snapped until Red had manage to quiet and pacify the ravening beast. 

It had woken up, she supposed, the minute she had discovered that two years of a marriage were a lie, and after that, it was never satisfied by anything she did, and it only became stronger and more vicious the more she fed it. 

But she couldn't listen to it right now. It was irrational and impulsive, and she needed to be calculated and plan carefully, spending her time alone in order to analyze the information she'd gathered. If she was going to escape, it was time for an air of calm. If she was to survive she had to be like...

She had to be like Red. The man had survived countless tortures and fire fights and the entire time, he hadn't shed a tear of pain, and he'd barely let his muscles flinch at all. She knew he felt emotions, but he usually hid them behind a thick hide that he'd built up over the decades. 

She had to begin working on creating her own hide. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In some strange twist of fate, I present you with a chapter that ISN'T 3-4k words. It's shocking, I know.

_"He often walked round and round the castle, but not too near to it."  
_

_-Jorinde and Joringel_

* * *

"Ah, Red--what is it that you need today? I can have my chef make you something special if that's what you want, but we're quite busy right now, so it might take a while." The thin man smiled at him, the light coming in through the window painting his light brown hair the color of tarnished bronze. That wide, welcoming smile that said _Trust me_ , paired with that hair and the sharp good-looks were one of the things that kept customers returning to Le Monarque.

It was also part of the reason that criminals frequented his establishment. Everett himself was not much involved in anything illegal, but what he lacked in that area he made up in his absolute discretion. To him, a good customer was a good customer, and it didn't matter if that person came into his restaurant only hours after committing grand larceny. Ratting out loyal customers was simply no good for business, and some of his highest paying customers happened to be those with more than a little blood on their hands. 

That was why Red and others trusted him to the extent that any sort of trust was possible in their line of business. That was also why he was uncertain whether Everett would be of any help. If the suspected kidnappers happened to be long time patrons, then Everett would be unlikely to betray their trust. Even with a gun pressed against his kidneys, Red wasn't sure whether or not the man would loosen his tongue. Loyalty was a double edged sword. 

"Nothing like that today, I'm afraid, though the offer _is_ incredibly tempting. I still have dreams about the Boudin Noir aux Pommes that I ate here two years ago. It takes a special sort of talent to make blood sausage appetizing," he said, putting a hand against the man's shoulder. He _did_ have a fondness for Everett, but it was necessary to play it up even more than usual if he was to extract the needed information.

Everett laughed, mouth pulling back to reveal two rows of perfectly straight, white teeth. "Well, next time you return I'll have to have it prepared specially for you. So what is the real reason you're here?"

"You've heard of Dawn Abato's disappearance?" Red slipped his hand off of Everett's shoulder. The smile was suddenly gone from the other man's face.

He pushed his hands into his small pockets and shook his head, smooth skin marred by the deep lines of a frown. "Yes, I have," he said, his voice quiet. "Dawn and Bruno are faithful patrons of Le Monarque. She's a lovely woman, and I was really upset to hear about what happened. But what about it?"

"I trust that you recall Elizabeth and I stopped here during her time as a fugitive?" He had not been so transparent about his motivations with the others he had interrogated--but Everett was different. He had been fond of Lizzie, even though they had spoken little. If Everett was reminded of that fondness and the discreet service had provided to them, perhaps he would be more inclined to break silence on the matter of the kidnappings.

He blinked, frown neither deepening nor lifting. "I do. What does this-- _oh_." He raised his eyebrows. "Was she taken too?"

"Yes, she was," he said, and it took most of his willpower to keep his voice firm and unemotional. "It is possible that one of the persons responsible could have been here any number of the nights Dawn came here in the past several months. They were also very likely present when Elizabeth and I attended."

Everett sucked on his cheek, body still. Red could tell that he too was trying to keep any emotions beneath the surface. "What is it that you're asking of me?"

"You know, I _do_ so appreciate that you don't beat around the bush, so in return I will be brief and forthcoming." He dug into the pocket of his jacket and held the photo of the unknown man that had been at the bar watching Amelia. "Do you know this man?"

Everett took the paper between two of his long fingers, eyes jumping across the photo as he took in the slightly blurred, pixelated image. "Yes, I know him. Do you think that he has something to do with the disappearances?"

"Mmm, yes. It is quite likely that he does. Do you know his name?" he asked the question without any sense of ceremony, but he knew that the case would become far easier or far more difficult based on how Everett chose to answer.

He sucked on his cheek again, head tilting to the side as he kept his eyes on the photo. His thumbs pressed light dents into the paper. "You know our policy of discretion. I do not break it unless I find it _absolutely_ necessary."

"And the kidnapping of two innocent women in addition to five others doesn't warrant breaking your rule? After the first forty-eight hours a person goes missing missing, the chances of finding them gradually decrease. Those forty-eight hours are long past for all seven of the victims. Do you _know_ the sorts of things that are done to women that are kidnapped?" He stayed where he was and did not take a step closer, but his voice rose in controlled intensity, trying to impart upon Everett the gravity of the situation. He knew threats of violence had little affect on the man--but Everett was a man of conviction and morals. If anything was going to persuade him, it would be the peril of that the victims were in.

He kept his head lowered for a moment, then he glanced up at Red through his thick, dark eyelashes. "Do you know for certain that this is the man that did it?"

"No, I don't, but he's a strong suspect. If he's innocent, there's no harm in telling me who he is. I will do nothing to him if he is uninvolved in this case. If is involved, then he will get what he deserves." Red hoped that the clear appeal to his morals would sway him.

"...Okay," he said, softly, the paper drooping in his hands, the man's distorted black and white face looking up at him. "His name is Brent Maddox. If what you're saying is true, I don't know if that's his real name, but it's the only one that he gave me."

"I assume that you keep records of your customers," Red said, taking back the photo as Everett handed it to him.

"We do. Our records are _meticulous_." He gave a smile, though it was only half-hearted. It was likely hard for him to fall back into customer service mode after the shock of breaking his one and only precious rule.

"Excellent. Then will you have someone check the nights Maddox was here and see if he was here any of the nights that any of the seven victims were? Oh, and there's one last thing," he said, holding up a finger as one hand dug out a list of the victim's names.

"What is that?" Everett seemed hesitant, as if he was suddenly realizing that by giving Maddox's name he had entered into a situation beyond him.

"I assume you keep surveillance tapes. They go back, _oh_ ," he bobbed his head back and forth, pressing his lips to the side, "six or so months, don't they?"

Everett held the list to his chest, fingers splayed against his expensive vest. "Yes, but--"

"Oh, good!" Red pressed his teeth together, giving him a wide, sharp smile, all teeth and bite. "Then you won't mind sending me footage if Maddox was there any of the nights the women were."

"I--yes, okay." He nodded quickly, long chin almost bumping against his throat with the rushed motion.

Red patted him on the cheek, Everett's cheekbone sharp against his palm. "Thanks for the little chat. I'll be back later for some of that Boudin Noir aux Pommes you promised."

* * *

Liz lay on her side on the bed, body curled towards the wall, her arms bent and pressed together. After her discussion with Reagan, she had been left with utter silence aside from the whine of the feeding slot as a tray of food was pushed through. Her stomach was knotted and twisted, but she knew she needed to keep her energy, so she had managed to force herself to gnaw at the apple slice and sandwich wedge that had been provided to her. The absolute stillness of the room was worming its way into her skull and settling into the base of brain, filling her entire body with the staticy energy and blankness. 

She knew what isolation could do to people--it could cause paranoia, hallucinations, and increased anxiety just to name a few effects. Well, she'd already been suffering from two of those three things, so there was no telling what the isolation would do to her already havoc wrecked mind if she didn't try to counteract what was being done to her. 

So, as she lay on her side, eyes wandering over the almost invisible pattern of the wall, she turned inward, creating a narrative with two versions of herself to go over what she knew about Miriam. If she was able to build up a profile of the woman just as she would any other criminal, then perhaps she would be able to find the key to her escape.

As her eyes fluttered closed, she pictured herself across the FBI interrogation table from herself as she had been three years ago--hair slicked back into a bun, a young, hard-nosed profiler ready to prove herself, whose nerves didn't fall apart when a taxi coughed a back fire. 

 _What did the crime scenes look like? What did your crime scene look like?_ the interrogator version of herself asked.

Her mental image shifted away from the table to envisioning the tiny black and white print of the newspapers and print outs of the cases that she and Aram had been going over before she had been taken. The scenes were always clean. There was barely anything there to go off of, and that was why none of the other victims had been found. Miriam was not a disorganized. On the contrary, she was quite organized and meticulous. If there was ever anything out of the ordinary at the scene, like Zachiel's shoe print, that told her that _something_ had not gone to plan, even if there wasn't physical evidence of it.

 _So she's organized and meticulous. That suggests intelligence and planning,_  interrogator Liz said to her. 

 _Yeah,_ obviously _she planned everything out. I mean, I'm stuck in a room in a building meant to house women like an insect collection_ , she shot back. Apparently with the absence of any other person to argue with, she turned to fighting with herself. No matter she how sliced it, that probably wasn't a good sign.

 _What about what you've personally observed from her personality? What does it tell you about her background?_ , her logical self said, continuing unphased.

Miriam was quiet and formal. She never used slang, and when she spoke it was slowly, as if she was choosing each word for maximum effect and meaning. She seemed small and unassuming, but as she had figured out earlier, the old woman was smart. She had pulled of six kidnappings--albeit with a little help--and hadn't been discovered in the entire year she'd been doing it. She used her small, frail nature to her advantage, such as when she'd lured Liz out of the flower shop. 

Liz flopped onto her back, drawing up her knees, fingers tapping against one leg. She blew a piece of hair out of her eyes. Fine, then what did formality and cleverness mean when paired together? Well, for one it meant that she was educated, perhaps by a prep school, or maybe a private tutor. If a prep school, perhaps that had partially been where she learned all the rules and codes of morality that she was pushing on Liz and the other women.

Either way, her family would've had to have been rich to afford a tutor or a prep school. So maybe Miriam was some old heiress, and she had bought this building with her family's left over money. And the fact that she always allowed Zachiel to touch and kidnap the women suggested that, aside from the fact that she wasn't physically capable of overpowering an average sized, healthy 20-something woman, perhaps Miriam was trying to put some sort of distance between what she was doing, like some part of herself knew that keeping women locked up was wrong. 

 _Good. Then what are her motivations?_ Interrogator Liz prodded.

 _Well, kidnapping women to save them from abusive and/or dangerous men. I already know that_ , she all but mentally snorted.

 _What more than that? What is the core reason behind saving them? The motivation beneath the motivation?_ Interrogator Liz said with patience.

Earlier, Liz had been wondering where Miriam had learned techniques of control and brain washing. She very much doubted that any sort of prim and proper teaching would have imparted upon her the ways to divest a person of their beliefs. But the methods she used weren't just used while trying to brain wash prisoners.

Some of the methods were also used in abusive relationships. Some abusers restrict and isolate their partners, controlling who they do and don't see, and also control their consumption of media to further limit their partner's exposure to outside influences. 

When Liz realized what that meant, it was so obvious that she felt a pang of frustration in her chest that she hadn't realized it before. Miriam had been the victim of some sort of abusive relationship, and now she was trying to protect women from the same fate that she had befallen, and based on her choices of victims--young, brunette--perhaps she was unconsciously trying to save her younger self.

Liz pushed herself up from the bed, kicking her sheets to floor, smiling so hard that her cheeks ached.

She knew how she was going to escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we're entering the home stretch of this story. Hold onto your hats, my friends, because things have to get a bit worse before they get any better. B)


	9. Chapter 9

_He fell on his knees before the old woman and implored her to give him back his Jorinde, but she said he should never have her again, and then went away._

_-Jorinde and Joringel_

* * *

The minute the food tray slid open, she was on her feet and pressed to the door, her body singing and alive with what she knew she had to do. The restless energy made her want to pace the perimeter of her room, but she stayed still, the energy vibrating and crackling inside the hollow of her chest.

"Miriam, there's something I need to talk to you about," she began, keeping her voice firm, but a bit nervous. Keeping up a facade of deference was necessary.

"...Yes, what is it, dear?" Miriam's voice was like honey, but it oozed with grains of apprehension.

"It's about my room. Don't get me wrong, I _really_ appreciate the newer one. But it's just that--" Liz bit her lip and sighed, letting the silence draw out. If she showed Miriam that she was uncertain and worried about asking this favor, perhaps she would be further convinced of Liz's compliance, even though she was playing a delicate game of manipulation.

"It is all right, you can tell me," she said gently, as if she was coaxing a frightened animal out of a corner.

"I don't have claustrophobia, not exactly. But a lot of things have happened to me, and being isolated almost constantly in a small room is...hard because of something that happened to me before I was exonerated." The energy inside of her was no longer bright and sparking--it had become dark and sharp, ricocheting up her spine and into her brain, pleading, _Don't say it. I don't want to relive it again._

"If you tell me what happened to you, perhaps we can come to some sort of an understanding," Miriam told her. It was a pacification, not a promise.

"There was this...man. He was a very powerful man, and my friends were trying to keep him from hurting me by keeping me in a small room away from him. But this man," she inhaled against her heart that had begun to thunder against her rib cage, "like I said, was powerful. So he made it so he could hurt me by pumping nitrogen into the room to suffocate me. So isolation and boxes like this, they...aren't good for me."

With every word she spoke, the scene that Liz described crawled back into her mind, tightening the knot in her chest harder and harder until it was almost difficult to breathe. But she didn't haul back and fight against it as she had before, when she was shaking and weeping on the floor of her apartment, a broken heap of a woman. She didn't know if, after this moment, she would go back to being that person. She didn't know if she would lock herself away from the world, disappear into a void inside herself and live every waking moment in hyper awareness of each raised voice and each mildly suspicious glance. But for the moment, her motives were primal and basic: 1. Escape. 2. Survive. Whatever happened after that didn't matter.

So, she let the terror take her. She let herself relive the moment a thousand times over again, let herself feel the gape mouthed, fish-like gasps for air, her hungry lungs burning and begging for more when the world around her had none left to give. She felt the pressurized buzz at the back of her skull as blackness wrapped itself around her eyes and turned her into a sightless, struggling thing clawing at the ground with blunted fingernails.

She felt it all, but she didn't let it control her. Liz grabbed onto the surging energy and the throbbing of her heart that the fear provided her and let it fuel her, let it spill into her voice so that it would twist Miriam's heart in her direction.

"I can still feel it," she said, her voice coming out in an almost gasp, her head pounding. "I'm dying. They're killing me--he's killing me and there's nothing I can do about it."

Placing the tips of her fingers against the door, she leaned her temple against it, shaking her head back and forth, pulse pounding beneath the edge of her jawline. "That's what being locked in this room is doing to me. Just let me out for a little while, and I'll do what you want, but I can't take this isolation."

Tears stung at the edges of her eyes, but somehow, she managed to hold the pieces of herself together in some semblance of a shape that resembled Elizabeth Keen. She dropped her arms to her sides, suddenly remembering when she was on trial for the murder of the harbor master. Similarly, she had just plead her case, and she was at the mercy of an impartial judge.

"I did not know about any of this," Miriam said, her voice thin and small.

"You're the only one outside of a small, select group of people that does," she laughed, though it sounded more like a ragged wheeze.

"In light of this I suppose that...I could possibly allow you outside of your room under my supervision. We have a common area that we let the other girls into sometimes. Zacheil and I could ...take you there." Every word sounded hesitant, as if two parts of her mind were warring with each other. Liz hoped that the compassionate part would win out.

"Yes, please. I would be very grateful if you did that. It's so generous of you to offer this for me. Thank you."

"I'll be back within two hours to take you out," Miriam said, the last of her words sliding away as her footsteps thumped down the hall.

Liz's heart was still thundering, her muscles still trembling, in the aftermath of conjuring up her almost-death in the Box. But despite that, something opened up in her chest. The feeling might have been hope, she realized.

It had been so long since she felt it that it was almost hard to recognize.

* * *

She managed to shower in the small bathroom she had been provided before Miriam came. As she did, she could almost feel the layers of sweat and grease roll off her body, and with it, several thin layers of fear and heaviness. When she stepped out of the small shower that was little more than a narrow stall, she felt sharp and new, ready to do anything that was needed of her.

The only thing to wear was that dress that she despised, but there was nothing she could do about her clothing options, so she slipped it on anyway. She couldn't keep the shudder from pulsing through her as it touched her body, imagining Zachiel’s blunt fingers and still bleeding hand pulling the dress over her.

Though it hadn't seemed like two hours, Miriam's knock soon came. Liz noted that time distortion was another side effect of isolation. Even though she'd been fighting against the worst effects of her imprisonment, it was unrealistic to expect that she'd be free from all of them.

Miriam had brought Zachiel again with the bag, and this time she wordlessly accepted it with her head bowed, though she exhaled between her locked teeth, mentally swerving away from the whispering memories of a choking death that tried to rise from the back of her consciousness.

Their journey was not flat and primarily straight as her trip to her new room had been. After the fifty paces that she counted, Zachiel's hand against her shoulders suddenly pushed her forward, and as she stumbled--while biting back a sharp comment--, her left foot came to slam down on a step.

So the building wasn't one level. That made sense, she supposed, when considering the fact that Miriam probably wanted to continue in her capture of women. She'd need a large building to house all of them and care for their needs. But a multi-story building made things more complicated for her if her current plan failed and she had to escape with no one's aide but her own. She had no way to know if her room was on the ground floor or not.

Zachiel's pressure between her shoulder's became marginally lighter as her wobbling, thudding walk against each step evened out as she became used to walking up stairs without sight. As they ascended, she kept count of each stair, and when they came to a stop on a flat plane again, the final count was at thirty steps. They walked forward several more paces, and then a door groaned shut behind her, the hinges old and un-maintained.

The bag was slipped off her head, and she saw Miriam only for the second time in her life. She had almost forgotten how very small the woman was, as if someone had built a frame of a human from twigs and wire and had draped cloth over it and somehow managed to bring it to life like a decrepit version of Pygmalion. Her long, withered mouth smiled as she looked up at Liz, her eyes wandering to Zachiel.

"You can leave now," she said, nodding to him.

On a neck like a thick trunk, he turned his head to Liz. Though he always seemed to be frowning, the frown further dug itself into his face. "Are you sure?" Unconsciously, his bitten hand twitched.

"Yes, it will be fine. Just stand outside the door, and if I need you, I will call for you," she told him. Though it was almost a command, coming from Miriam, it simply sounded like a gentle, grandmotherly suggestion, as if she was just asking Zachiel if he would please check on the muffins in the oven, but that he didn't have to if he didn't feel like it.

His squinted, narrow eyes stayed on Liz for a moment, and she lowered her gaze, eyelids flickering as if she was a bashful young girl. His thick back turned away from them and walked out the door, and as he shut it, there was the snick of it being locked. Without his eyes burning a hole into her face, she was able to take in the room that she had been guided to.

It was some sort of quaint common sitting room. The floor was hardwood, and the edges of the room were dotted by various pieces of varnished furniture with cushions colored various hues of pinks and reds. In the center of the room, there sat a long table with chairs pushed neatly against it, and there was a vase in the middle with several lilies sprouting out of it. Several small stacks of books and magazines sat in a square pattern around the vase. Two cups of what might have been coffee or hot chocolate sat on the table, presumably waiting for she and Miriam.

But the thing that Liz was most drawn to was the high-up window against the far wall. It wasn’t useful to her escape plan, but it was the first natural light and glimpse of the outside world that she had had in two days (or had it been more than two days?) She wanted to run to the window and lay underneath it, soaking up the light as if she was a cat lounging in the sun on a summer day.

Instead, she walked to the table and sat down in one of the chairs near the vase, her finger tracing circular patterns against one of the glossy magazine covers, one hand eventually wandering to sit limply on the rim of the cup in front of her. Miriam sat opposite her, hands clasped, gaze concentrated on her hands.

"Are you feeling any better now?" she asked, and almost sounded like she needed Liz to feel better.

"A little bit, thank you." Liz wrapped both hands around the cup. "An open area with a window like this is helpful."

Miriam craned her neck toward the window, her whole body shifting with the movement so that she was tilted back against the chair. Liz's eyes flicked to Miriam's pants pocket. The faint, boxy outline of a cell phone pushed against the fabric, and her heart stuttered. She’d vaguely remembered the outline of a cell phone from that night in the flower shop, but she hadn’t been certain that Miriam would still have it with her. Not having to restructure her plan made her further relax and sink into the chair.

"I know it is not much of a view what with the tree branch in the way, but I'm glad you enjoy it." Miriam turned her head back to Liz and raised the cup to her mouth, looking hopeful that Liz was pleased, as if she should be happy that her bird cage had been shifted near a window, as if a view of the world sky she couldn't enter would make her just as happy as soaring free.

Liz stood from her chair, her own cup still clutched in her hands as walked around the edge of the table, eyes fixed on the window. Miriam was right--all she could see the cornflower blue sky cut by the jagged slash of a crooked tree branch that wobbled in the wind. She still stepped closer and kept her head tilted so that Miriam was in her periphery. She stared up at the branch as if she was transfixed, her body still, one arm wrapped around her middle as she held her cup in one hand, only barely moving her neck when Miriam came up beside her.

She had taken the bait. Acting like she hadn’t noticed Miriam’s presence, Liz turned on one foot as if to walk back to the table, stumbling as she leaned forward and pretending she had only just seen Miriam. Acting like she had lost her balance, the edge of her foot scuffed against the floor and she pitched forward, bumping into Miriam and dropping her cup, sending shards of ceramic across the floor and a spray of hot chocolate onto the hardwood and down the side of Miriam’s shirt. And during that brief contact while Miriam tried to take in what was happening, Liz’s hand flashed out toward the bulge in Miriam’s pocket, her fingers slipping around the hard form of the cell phone.

Liz slapped one hand to her mouth while the other held the cell phone behind her back, jumping back on legs as wobbly as a newborn colt’s. “Oh my goodness. Miriam I—” She reached out a hand toward the stain that blotched the arm of Miriam’s shirt, then jerked her hand back before she made contact. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking, so I didn’t see you. This is so stupid. I should’ve been more careful.”

Despite the fact that she had been doused in thick, luke-warm liquid, Miriam just smiled, unphased. “Oh, it is all right, don’t cry over a little spilled hot chocolate. Things like this have happened before, that’s why I keep cleaning supplies nearby. Just stay there and I’ll be back in a moment with something to clean up the mess.”

“Thank you for not being upset. I guess I’m just still feeling overwhelmed by everything.” She turned on heel to keep the cell phone out of sight as Miriam walked in front of her and over toward the edge of the room where there was a cupboard she hadn’t noticed before.

The instant Miriam had her back turned, Liz whipped out the phone. It was a flip phone, black, simple, and generic. As she stared down at the screen, she thought there must be something wrong with it because the screen was shaking, but as her gaze followed down the key pad and down to the length if her wrist, she noticed that her hands were trembling. She inhaled, blasting air through her body like a machine trying to cool itself down in order to prevent itself from overheating.

She had to remain calm. There was barely any time to do what she needed. After a second of searching, she found the volume and turned it all the way down, then she pressed the tips of her nails to the keypad again.

“Where did I put the cleaning supplies?” Miriam grumbled from across the room.

Some sharp stabbed the pit of Liz’s stomach, digging at her innards, sending up bolts of nervous energy into her arms. She typed in Aram’s number and stared at the silent phone as it rang, the little numbers informing her that no one had picked up yet.

“Well, here are the paper towels…” Something clattered in the cupboard.

The phone continued to silently ring. Her insides were eating themselves alive.

The numbers stopped ticking up and the screen indicated that someone had picked up. She didn’t know whether to scream or cry or laugh, or do some horrible combination of all three that would’ve sounded like the strange bellow of some beast, raw and strange, ripped from the center of all that she was.

“Do you need help?” she called to Miriam, somehow managing to keep her voice light. She’d need to carry on some sort of conversation long enough for the call to be traced.

She tilted her head to look at Miriam’s thin back bent into the cupboard. Liz was overcome with the desire to bash her in the head and shove her into the cupboard. She shook her head, tossing the thought out of her mind with the sharp jerk of her neck.

“Oh, no. It will take just a moment to find what I need.” She reached into the cupboard and set down the paper towels next to her legs.

“Do you use a generic brand or one of those fancy organic cleaners that’s becoming popular?” It was a ridiculous question, but she couldn’t think of anything better. Her hands were slick with sweat as she clutched onto the cell phone with both hands. She eased up on the pressure lest she snap the device in half.

“We just buy the generic ones. I know organic is supposed to be better, but I figured that we should just keep using the generic brands that have always worked. Maybe I’m set in my ways,” Miriam laughed, her sharp shoulders shaking with the sound.

“Yeah, maybe. There’s not always anything wrong with that.” Her eyes flicked down to the phone. The call had lasted for a minute. That should’ve been long enough to trace it. At least, she’d have to hope so, or she would probably feel like hurling the phone at the wall and grinding the smashed plastic pieces under her feet.

“Here we go. I don’t know why it took so long to find it.” The back of Miriam’s head shook, her short brown hair brushing against her shirt collar.

Liz ended the call and pushed the phone closed. She wouldn’t have time to delete any records of the call, so she’d have to hope that the team would come in time. She wasn’t sure if she liked how much of her flimsy plan hinged on hope. That particular emotion hadn’t been much help to her recently.

As Miriam walked back over to her and stooped down with the paper towels and spray bottle, Liz stood over her. She was vulnerable. It would’ve been so easy to just bend over and twist her neck. Her fingers twitched with the thought of being pressed against Miriam's bony neck, pulse galloping beneath her palms, eyes wide and terrified as she knew what Liz was going to do, as she knew that she was at the mercy of the person she had kept trapped for so long. She imagined Miriam’s eyes flickering and gasping as she realized that she wouldn’t be shown mercy. That she wouldn’t pulled into death peacefully by the tides of old age, but rather would be dragged into the abyss savagely by a woman who had finally broken and let the worst of her ooze out of the cracked fissures in her soul. Liz pressed her nails into her hand.

 _No,_ she said to the urge. _I won’t._

It would be foolish. There was no telling whether she would be able to do the killing quickly, and if she couldn’t, she would’ve sabotaged the trust and camaraderie she had been building. And even if she could do it, she’d still have to contend with Zachiel and the fact that she had no idea what state the building was in. It could be in Nebraska or it could be in Maryland. She simply had no idea.

And aside from that, as she stood over Miriam and mused over her vulnerability, she was struck by just how old and brittle Miriam was, as if she might break if she stumbled and fell. Killing her…what good would it accomplish? She already knew that murdering Miriam would only complicate her plans, so the only end it would serve would be vengeance. But at what cost? Liz still didn’t believe that she was a gentle thing, nor had she ever been. But she didn’t want to become that dark creature that lurked inside of her, callous and selfish, doing only what served and pleased her, tearing apart and devouring anything that threatened or angered her. She didn’t want to be a woman hard and alone—a beast crouching in its den surrounded by bones, trapping itself in a private cage of its own rage and mistrust.

She bent down, one hand behind her back as she reached for the paper towels. Miriam glanced at her, but didn’t protest at her move to help. She ripped off a towel and scooted closer to Miriam and bent down near the spillage. As she and Miriam scrubbed at the hot chocolate, she shifted her hidden hand and slipped the cell phone back into Miriam’s pocket.

* * *

As Red sat across the desk from Bruno once again, he felt as if he was connected to the man’s exhaustion by some kind of wavelength. Glancing up into the man’s drawn, washed out face was like looking into a mirror that reflected his inner state. He still managed to cram down the potent mixture of misery and fury that he felt deep inside himself, but he felt that it was stamped just as deeply into his being as Bruno’s fear was gouged into the crevices of his face.

“So, you see,” he continued, spreading his hands over the pictures of the old woman and the frowning man that sat on the desk, “that we have several solid leads. I know that it might not be as solid as you were hoping, but it’s something. I can feel that I’m getting close.” He folded his hands again, all his movements mechanical and controlled, like an actor thinking about every twitch of his muscles and how to best use them to convey the emotions he wanted the audience to see.

Bruno’s chin sat his his hand, one index finger tapping out a beat against his sagging cheek as his gaze clawed over the pictures. “No, this is good. This is what I wanted.”

“Ah, _well_ , I’m glad.” He reached out to take the pictures, but as he did, Bruno’s hand wrapped around his wrist. His muscles stretched and tensed, nostrils flaring, ready to launch himself across the desk and at the other man’s throat in the event that he had suddenly lost his mind.

“You do whatever you need to to the people that took Dawn.” He shook Red’s wrist, eyes stretched so wide that he could see pink around the whites of Bruno’s eyes. “You hurt the people that did this. You make them pay.”

Right now, Bruno was like Red’s darkest thoughts about the case personified and put into words. Well, who was he to argue with himself? He smiled, and it was the first real smile that he had given in the past few days. It was hungry and cruel. “I will.”

Bruno gave a firm nod and let go of his wrist, leaning back into his chair again, some measure of his anger closed off for the moment. There was little left to say, but he didn’t want to leave the meeting on such an intense note. Leaving Bruno stewing over his fantasies of violent, righteous retribution could leave him vulnerable to making a rash decision, and that was the very last thing he needed right now. He opened his mouth to begin speaking again, but a shadow came up to the side of the chair that he sat in.

Dembe stood next to him, flip phone clutched in one hand, the screen turned away from both of them so Bruno couldn’t see the number. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t interrupt if I absolutely didn’t need to, but this is very important.” His eyes flicked to Red. “It’s about the case.”

Red didn’t wait for Bruno’s permission to take the call, but the other man nodded anyway as he rose from his seat and grabbed at the phone, pushing out the door and into the hallway. He leaned forward, craning his neck and glancing both direction to make sure that it was empty before beginning to speak.

“What is it?” his words were clipped.

“I heard from Agent Keen,” came Aram’s voice, crackling and breathless on the other end of the line. Red’s fingers tightened around the phone.

“Is she uninjured? What did she say?” The words spilled out before he could arrange his sentences into something more orderly.

“I didn’t actually talk to her. It sounded like she was talking to someone else about…cleaning supplies or something. But she didn’t sound hurt. She must’ve gotten someone’s phone and left it on so I could get a trace on her.” In the background, there was the sound of fingers slamming rapidly against a keyboard.

“I assume that you got the trace.” If he hadn’t, that would be unfortunate for all involved.

“Yes, I did. And I…haven’t told the rest of the team yet, like you said,” Aram said, his voice sounding like that of an honors student who had been sent to the principle’s office for the first time.

“Good,” he said, voice a rough breath. “Good. Aram—”

“Um, yes?” The clatter of keys in the background paused, his breath growing a bit quicker.

“Thank you for everything that you’ve done for Elizabeth.” It didn’t need saying again, not after the last time Aram had prevented her death, and he didn’t need to be in further debt to anyone, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying it.

“I would’ve done all this anyway,” Aram said, voice thick, almost afraid, “even if you hadn’t asked me to. She’s my friend too.”

One eyebrow twitched up. Just a few months ago, that was something that Aram might have thought to himself but never would have dared say aloud to Red for fear that he’d come to some mysterious, shadowy end due to one word gone astray. There was something to be admired in those slightly confrontational words. “I know.”

Aram inhaled sharply as if he had just realized what he’d done. “Well…anyway, I’ll send you the coordinates as soon as the call ends.”

Without saying goodbye, Red shut the phone.

There was no point in further prolonging the time that Lizzie would be trapped, even by a second.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've been writing and rewriting bits of this for weeks, so I'm excited to actually post this chapter.

_“He took no notice of her, and went and looked over the cages of birds; but there were many hundred nightingales, and how was he to find his Jorinde from among them?”_

_-Jorinde and Joringel_

* * *

The sky was a gray-black smeared bruise, clouds hanging dark and smooth in the sky, the thin outlines of telephone wires slashing against their underbellies. The building towered up before him, the windows on the upper floor black, sightless eyes shut against the outside world. Initially, the coordinates that Aram had provided him with had only lead them to a small town in Virginia, but it had hardly been difficult from there to search what large buildings were in the area. There had only been one large enough that could serve the kidnapper’s purposes. A former asylum bought by an unknown party.

It was always the small towns, wasn’t it? Neighbors smiling their crescent moon smiles to each other over the community potluck, and then they went home and shut their doors, locking themselves inside with a thousand little buried wounds born from arguments. It was always the little towns where the nice man who grew flowers was also burying corpses in the garden, and where the vibrant, much loved woman that hosted yahtzee at her house on Thursday nights was slowly poisoning her husband.

Red continued looking at the door for another moment with its white wash and polished brass knob. As he raised his fist to the door and knocked, there was a cold calm that trickled through his veins. After a moment it came open without even a creak and a small woman stood before him, smile thin and wispy. The graphite pencil drawing that Mary Ann had provided him with was staring up at him.

“May I come in for a moment? I’m afraid that there’s something wrong with my car. My friend is fixing it—not to worry helping out there—, but we haven’t had anything to eat in a while, so is it _remotely_ possible that I could bother you for a bit of food to share with him?” He pressed his hands together in supplication.

The old woman’s fingers tightened around the frame of the door, though she remained smiling. The moment dragged out a second too long, taut and ready to snap, before she nodded. “Certainly, come inside. Watch your step, as the floor sags a bit on that first board. I do my best to maintain the building, but it is rather old, and one can’t do much about every quirk in a house such as this.”

“No, certainly not.” As instructed, he stepped over the first board, noting that it did indeed buckle in the middle. The old woman stepped away from the doorway.

“I’ll be back in just a moment. There’s something I need to take care of. Just you wait here, sir.” She turned away from him and headed out of the foyer, dull light leaking in through the gauzy curtains covering the windows, painting her skin a faint green, and her brown hair dark blue.

Given the moment alone, he craned his head back and looked up toward the ceiling, listening in the silence for signs life in the house besides the old woman. Her accomplice, perhaps. Or a footstep of one of the missing women. But the house remained quiet, not even the groan or creak of an old building settling in on itself. At shuffle of the woman’s feet against the floorboards, he lowered his head and resumed the mask of a stranded traveler.

“All right then, follow me into the kitchen. I do not have much, but I do have some biscuits. Hopefully that will be adequate for you and your friend.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure it will be. Thank you _ever_ so much for this Miss…?” He trailed along behind her, eyes fixed on her thin neck.

“Miriam Meyers.” She walked up to the counter of the kitchen, pushing a stool up next to it and stepped up on stool. One leg wobbled. She tilted her weight so that the stool sat down flat against the floor and she pulled open a door to a bread cupboard.

“What a lovely, alliterative name.” He stayed standing, certain that she wouldn’t find it polite if he sat without her directing him to. Besides, it was important for the moment for her to believe that she had control of the situation.

“Oh, thank you. It’s my family’s name.” Miriam’s fingers wrapped around a plastic bag and she pulled it out of the cupboard, placing it on the counter. The stool’s loose leg whined as she stepped down, picking up the biscuit bag and walked to the table where she sat the bag down.

“You may sit down for a moment if you wish. I’m sure your nerves are bothering you and it would do you good not to be on your feet.”

He tilted his head and obeyed, walking to the small table and sitting down in a chair facing the bag of biscuits. “Have you lived here long, Miriam?”

“Not in this house, no. But in this town, yes. Ever since I married my husband, and even after he passed away.” She sat down across from him, body straight, feet planted firmly against the ground. It wasn’t the stance of someone worried, though. It was simply the practiced body language of someone who had proper posture drilled into them from a young age.

“I’m sorry to hear that he is no longer with us.” Red reached for the bag of biscuits and pulled it closer to him, fingers fiddling with the twist tie wrapped around the opening, eyes lowered—the movements of a concerned stranger.

“It is all right. It has been a long time without him, and I’ve gotten used to living alone, though I do have Zachiel to help me with things,” she said, speaking the other man’s name with fondness.

He twisted a finger into the plastic. “I’m sure it’s helpful to have someone around to help with…all the various duties you seem to have around your home.”

“Yes, it is hard to maintain a large household such as this by oneself.” A crease near her mouth deepened.

He pulled his hand away from the plastic and dropped it against the table, tapping his fingers against the edge. “Oh no, I don’t mean that. I mean what with all the girls in the rooms. It’s hard to keep them all fed and clean, isn’t it? I can’t _imagine_ what an ordeal it must be to keep your little habit secret. People in towns like this do talk so, don’t they? Gosh, why won’t Marsha keep her nose out of places where it doesn’t belong?”

“I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about. It is just Zachiel and I here. I have no family. Perhaps you’ve mistaken me for someone else?” The line of her body was no longer comfortable, practiced rigidity. Her spine had pulled itself tight.

“Let’s not pretend anymore, Miriam. I’m sure it would be a weight off your mind to let someone know what you’re doing. Confess your sins, as it were. I mean, I have no clergical licensing-- though there was the time I became an ordained minister via a website—,nor do I know if you are Catholic, but I’m sure the principle would be comforting all the same, regardless of your theological beliefs.” The air in the room tilted and shifted in his favor, and from the look in her eyes, she seemed to sense it too. My, but this moment was _delicious,_ he thought.

“You have no right to take them back. What I did—what I’m _doing_ —it’s right.” Her hands were gripping each other, tips of her nails pressed against the back of her other hand.

Red fell back against his seat and waved a hand in the air. “There now! Isn’t that comforting? Don’t you feel unburdened?”

“You won’t—”

“Oh, but I will, because, well, I have a gun. And you don’t.” He pulled it from the holster hidden by his jacket, and pushed it forward, metal scraping against the table. “Some situations are wonderfully simple like that, don’t you agree?”

“It’s not quite that simple,” she said, voice calm again, fingers no longer digging into her hand, though the red dots remained as a memory of nails jabbing into thin flesh. “I believe Zachiel is probably done dealing with your friend, and he’ll be back shortly.”

“Ah, that. I wouldn’t put much faith in good old Zachiel. I think he’s taking a nice snooze right now.” He ran a thumb along the edge of the gun, eyes on her as he smiled, jaw working.

Her eyes widened, magnified in the lenses of her thick glasses, and for a moment, she became an old, haggard owl. “What did you—”

“Oh no, he’s not _dead_.” Red finally picked up the gun, tilting it in her direction. “Not yet, anyway.”

She pushed her hands against the table to rise, but he raised the gun higher, pointing the muzzle in the direction of her chest. He flicked it toward the chair. “No,” he said, any lightness in his voice gone, now replaced with a hard, stinging edge. “Sit down.”

To her credit, Miriam didn’t shake as most people would have when faced with a gun. Perhaps she was able to hold her composure after years of training in propriety, or perhaps her training had been rather more brutal, but nevertheless taught her how to remain collected in the face of danger.

“What you’re doing is wrong. If you take them from me, they’ll be without any sort of protection. Removing them would be the cruelest thing you could do.” Now it was her turn to put on a mask of negotiator—one that he knew well.

He couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up from inside his guts. He pressed his free hand to his chest. “ _I’m_ the cruel one? Tell me, dear, how exactly is it kindness when you're stealing women away from their lives and isolating them and restricting everything that they can do?" The smile that he wore was anything but kind. It was tight lips over teeth--a predator restraining itself from biting until the moment was right.

Miriam looked helpless for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth as she scrambled in the face of his logic. "Women like them need help. They will not leave these situations unless someone removes them from it--it's the same as an intervention for a drug addict. They need to have their habits monitored so that they can change their lives for the better."

"And what were you going to do after you believed that they were sufficiently changed? Keep them here forever like pretty little birds for you to look at?" He turned the gun over in his hands, holding it lazily. "Is that what your husband did to you? Did he isolate you from the outside world and control your habits? He would be so _very_ proud that you're carrying on his legacy, if so."

Her nostrils flared and the thin, white skin on her chin twitched and trembled, her mask cracking and flaking. "You don't know anything about what I went through."

He scratched his chin with the barrel of the gun. "Perhaps not. I’m merely speculating, of course. I don’t know the facts of your life, but the facts are, frankly, irrelevant. Whatever lead you to do this cannot possibly excuse what you’ve done, no matter how harrowing it was for you to endure."

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed and she leaned against the chair, gradually trying to glue back together her composure.

“That is quite comforting to know, as I have no interest in doing the mental contortions required in order to understand—ah!” He leaned his head back as he heard the door to the foyer open. “Sorry to cut our philosophizing short, but my friend is here.”

Dembe came into the kitchen, eyes wandering to Miriam who laid her hands flat against the table as if she was possibly thinking of hurling it at him. They simple gazed at each other for a moment before Dembe pulled a syringe out of his pocket. The faintest outline of a pulse beat at the hollow of Miriam’s throat.

“Oh, so I see you’re familiar with the stuff? Pretty potent, is it? I’d assume it would have to be to put your victims out as quickly as it does. It really wasn’t very hospitable of you to try to get Zachiel to jab Dembe here with it. What is the world coming to when nice little old ladies say they’re going to give you food, but then send out their lackeys to sedate your friends? The world is just _dreadfu_ l, isn’t it?” He shook his head and sighed.

Dembe pressed the needle into her neck and her nails scrambled against the table, a hand going to her throat before her eyes began to flutter closed.

Red kept shaking his head, a smile at the edge of his lips. “Yes, it’s just dreadful.”

* * *

It took an hour to find the keys. The ring of keys was taped beneath the shelf of a tiny cupboard. It wasn’t the cleverest of hiding places, but with the old asylum being so isolated, he supposed that she didn’t think there would be much reason to be meticulous hiding the keys. He and Dembe split up in order to search the entire building for Lizzie.

As Red walked through the halls and peeked through feeding tray slots only to find the rooms empty, he thought that it simultaneously did and didn’t feel like an old asylum. Miriam had renovated it so it felt more like a home, and it didn’t even seem like a majority of the inmate’s rooms had been preserved. It felt like someone had shaved off half of the asylum and glued it onto a mid-20th century mansion style home.

But creating such a building had brought with it all the eeriness and decay of both worlds—the empty, haunted memories of the inmates that had lived and died in the halls and rooms of the buildings, lost in the shadows of their minds and the ignorant treatments of well intentioned but misguided doctors, and the shallow, decadent architecture created by the idle rich tossing their money into construction projects in the hopes of creating something memorable with their piles of cash.

He pushed open another tray slot, leaning down and pressing his eye to it. The slot threw a brick of light against the far wall of the windowless room, illuminating the skeletal frame of an old bed, the metal splotched and rusted, flakes of paint on the wall behind it rippling and curling, falling to the floor like plaster snow. Something small scuttled away from the beam of light. He was gritting his teeth when Dembe’s voice drifted from the stairs leading to the next floor.

“Raymond,” he said, voice soft.

For a moment, several scenarios flashed through his mind—Lizzie, safe, alive, palms pressed to the door. Lizzie alive, but not safe, a ring of bruises wrapping around her wrist like a hideous bracelet. And finally, though he knew it was the least likely option given when he knew about Miriam and Zachiel, he saw Lizzie dead, body curled up and withered on a rotten bed frame like the one he had just seen

He blinked the image away, pushing it inside one of the many locked, forbidden boxes that inhabited his mind. “Yes? Did you find her?”

“Yes.” Dembe nodded, hand placed against the railing. “She’s on the floor above.”

He ascended the stairs as if in a fog. It had only been three days since she’d disappeared, only three days since he’d been at her apartment, only three days since they’d lasted talked. But the past three days had felt like he’d been shoved into a different reality, some crueler reality in which she didn’t exist, and only he remembered her.

As he stood at the door that Lizzie was locked behind, he couldn’t remember how he had gotten there, couldn’t remember if the stairs had creaked of sagged, or if he had turned a corner once or twice or had simply gone straight. But that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was this moment and whatever would precede it.

He shoved the key into the lock.

It clicked, and he turned the knob, the white square of the door drifting open to reveal Lizzie dragging her hands away from the now empty air and jumping back, her irises black and shining.

She looked little different from the last time he’d seen her, though she was perhaps a bit thinner, the curving outline of her clavicle pressing more sharply against her skin as her chest rose and fell with her quick inhalations of breath. She was dressed in a foreign, wrinkled yellow dress, and with her dark, tangled hair falling across her shoulders and back, she looked as if she'd crawled out of the depths of a Gothic novel, a creature half haunted and wild that was ready to claw her way out of the next obstacle thrown in her way.

They stared at each other for a moment, air burning as he breathed, one of her hands trembling at her side.

He surged over the threshold and she met him halfway, body slamming into him and almost knocking the air from his lungs as she wrapped her arms around his neck like a vice, hand grabbing a fistful of his jacket, her breath whistling in his ear. He crushed her to his chest, dipping his head and pressing his cheek to the crown of her head. The cage of her ribs expanded and contracted under his embrace, her head bobbing as she swallowed hard.

He wanted to stay like that forever--their arms locked around each other, desperate hands clutching and brushing against their necks and backs, and he unwilling to open his eyes lest he awaken to a cold, vicious world where she was still gone and locked away from him forever. A world without her was none at all. A world without her was bland and pointless, drained of any vibrancy or meaning that had colored it. His arms tightened around her.

“ _Lizzie_ ,” he whispered into her hair. He’d never been much of a religious man, but he infused the whisper of her name with every ounce of reverence in his soul.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said voice muffled against his jacket, voice trembling somewhere between a laugh and a sob, one hand patting the space between his shoulder blades. “Good to see you too.”

Somehow, he managed a chuckle. If she was able to minimize the situation and sweep her feelings under the rug as she often did, then that was a good sign she was relatively unharmed.

He was about to reluctantly let go when she shifted one arm, and soon her free hand was against the back of his head, thumb running over the sparse crop of his hair. He stiffened at the unexpected gesture, a spooked horse shying away from an affectionate touch after years of only cruel hands striking its skin, uncertain how to process a gentle caress. It was all he could do to keep himself from sighing.

After a moment, she slipped both hands away and leaned limp against him, giving another sharp inhale. She grew stiff, muscles along her back and neck tightening, and he could sense that she was rebuilding the walls inside herself and between them. He pulled away from her even though it felt like tearing open a deep, old wound.

She glanced up at him, a muscle in her jaw jumping, fingers twisting into her dress as she searched for something to say.

“There’s something I need to take care of downstairs before we let the other women out,” he told her, falling into a businesslike tone.

“What… _problem_?” Her brow furrowed, her voice guarded.

“It’s not much of one. You can stay there and I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He turned away from her and started back down the hallway, but her bare feet slapped against the floor.

He hadn’t expected any less from her than not listening to him. He didn’t much savor the idea of her watching what he was about to do, but neither did it feel right for her _not_ to be there, not after all they had been through together in the past few months. Not after the long sleepless nights on the run, her eyes filled with everything that she didn't want to say but that he could read in the depths of her frightened gaze. Not after her giving up her way to freedom to save something as wretched as him from a clan of redneck highwaymen. 

Not after her being stabbed with a sedative and hidden away because someone thought he was putting her in danger. Not after he had spent every waking hour hunting down leads to find her again. Not after she had been clever enough to make the call to Aram. 

Not after all _they_ had done to find their way to each other again. 


	11. Chapter 11

_“Now (the old woman) could no longer work enchantments (…) and he went home with his Jorinde, and they lived a long and happy life.”_

- _Jorinde and Joringel_

* * *

In the time that had elapsed upstairs, the sky had grown darker, the glow of night illuminated in the bulbs of the still thick, overhanging clouds, the blue light pouring in through the kitchen, draping the counters and cabinets with a gossamer of gloom. Miriam’s cheek lay pressed against the top of the table, one of her arms stretched out, fingers curled up like a dead, limp insect. Lizzie’s footsteps echoed each step he took, falling just a second behind his own, pausing when he paused, stopping when he stopped.

Her eyes were needles against his shoulders as he pulled the gun from its holster and flicked off the safety, leveling it straight at Miriam’s forehead.

“Red. _No_ ,” she said, voice all hard edges and glass, ready to cut where she needed to to get him to stop.

He sniffed, jaw growing tighter, hands firm around the gun. He knew that she wouldn’t want him to do this, that no matter how much she wondered whether she had become dark and damaged, there would always be that light inside of her that urged her against truly giving in to her worst desires and impulses. But that better angel inside her heart also tended to protest against those things that had become necessary. No matter how much grayer the world had become in her eyes over the years, she still often saw people and actions in terms of moral or immoral, rather than what was ultimately beneficial, necessary, and just.

"I will do whatever I think I need to keep you safe. You very well know that." The gun did not move from the direction he pointed it. The steel of it had become one with his stiff hand.

She circled from behind him and stood at his side, arms barred across her chest, eyes black hollows in the circle of light that the dim kitchen bulb threw into the room. Whatever vulnerability she had shown minutes ago was shoved back deep down inside her, wrapped in iron chains and locks.

"I know that, but this isn't necessary. Does she look like she's about to get up and lock me up again? Does she look like she's in any sort of position to do that, Reddington?" She swept her arm in the direction of the gun, a sharp, slicing motion. And with that formal use of his name, she put a distance between them. For a moment, she was that steely, no-nonsense FBI agent trying to shove her criminal informant back into line as he refused to cooperate.

It was them at the beginning again, her refusing to trust him, face wary and guarded as she prodded at him, trying to determine whether he was on her side, or whether he would jab a knife into her side and twist it deep into her guts when the opportunity presented itself. It was a pen in his neck again, the sudden, quick jab and explosion of pain that he hadn’t seen coming, when he’d realized she was even more than he’d thought she was. Even more vicious. Even more clever. Not someone to be underestimated.

“As long as she’s alive, she presents a danger to you as well as other potential victims. Do you want to see her capture other women and subject them to what you and the others dealt with?” He waved a free hand at her, indicating all the evidence that was on her body and in her eyes—the rumpled dress, the sharp bones of her wrists, and the flickering, wild eyes of a caged animal.

“No, she does not present that sort of danger as long as she is locked up and given the help that she needs. What she did was wrong, but after what she probably went through by her husband’s hand, doesn’t she deserve some sort of help?” Lizzie walked closer to the table, her shadow elongated and spidery in the strange light, the tips of her shadow’s fingers long and pointed, flickering as she gestured.

“Ah, so now you’re a lawyer arguing on your clearly guilty client’s behalf? Or perhaps it’s Stockholm Syndrome.” The moment he said the last sentence, he knew he’d made a mistake. His throat grew tight.

If her eyes had been flints before, they now turned to coals. When she’d changed the atmosphere between them, he’d been pulled back into an older form of their relationship—more prickly, more volatile. Now wasn’t the time for that at all. Neither of them needed more damaged inflicted on them, least of all by the other person.

“Lizzie, I—I apologize. That was thoughtless and wrong of me to say—”

She threw her hands in the air. “Yeah, you’re damn right it was. But that’s not the pertinent thing here right now. You should be more concerned about the gun you’re pointing at the head of a little old lady that you had sedated. Do you really want to be the person she thinks you are?”

“What she thinks of me is irrelevant,” he said, voice growing hard again. He wrapped his other hand around the gun, taking a step closer.

Lizzie’s shoulders fell down, and she looked exhausted, bones and veins drained of energy, as if she’d been fighting so long, for so many days, that her body was growing limp against her will, telling her that she needed to rest. “Do you know what I thought about while I was in that room?”

The sudden change in topic made his hands shift an inch, now pointed to the side of Miriam’s hairline. He knew this tactic. She was changing the conversation and asking a question to catch him off guard and then eventually lead the topic back to her original point.

It was _his_ tactic.

“What?” he asked.

“Well, I guess I thought about a lot of things,” she walked closer to him, soles of her feet gently slapping against the floor, her hands sliding up to grip her upper arms. “I thought about how to escape, about why she and Zachiel had done it, but…”

She opened her mouth, jaw jutting out, and he could hear her molars clicking and grinding together. The tips of her nails dug into her arms, dented skin turning white under the pressure. She lowered her eyes, and she swallowed so hard it almost looked painful. “I also thought about how to hurt them. How to kill them. I _wanted_ to do it.” Her gaze flicked up to him, skin around her eyes tight. “I _fantasized_ about it, Red.”

It hurt him to see the turmoil that raged inside of her, crashing against her chest and twisting up inside her heart. “But you didn’t. That blood isn’t on your hands. You won’t have to take that burden of guilt upon you.”

“If you kill them, I will have that guilt. Don’t you get it? You killing someone because of me--that puts part of the blame on me. They would still be alive if it weren’t for me. And…part of me still wants to do it, after all she put me through. Part of me wants to take that gun from you and do it myself. If you kill her, it will be like I did it. Parts of us want the same thing, on some level.”

He dragged his eyes down to the length of the gun, the line black and straight. It would be so simple to just pull the trigger, to just end the argument there, to just make the decision for her. He knew what needed to be done, but yet, something heavy held his finger back. “It won’t be your fault. We are responsible for each of our decisions, and if I decide to kill her, it’s my fault, not yours. I’ve accepted long ago what I’ve done. There’s no need for you to take some of the guilt on to yourself. You’ve suffered more than enough.”

“Part of us wants to do it. But the other part doesn’t,” she said, voice quieter, gentler.

 _You’re wrong_ , Red wanted to say. _I feel nothing about doing this_. But then, he wouldn’t be hesitating so long if there was no conflict, would he? Without thinking twice, he’d killed others for threatening or hurting her. The fact that he was taking time to mull this over meant that there was something different about this.

As he’d been thinking, he hadn’t noticed her come closer to him, her thin shadow striping against the floor and falling crookedly across his side. Lizzie put a hand against his shoulder, light and hesitant. He inhaled at the touch.

"Raymond,” she said.

In anyone else's mouth, the name meant little. It could be said with disdain and a curled lip or with some facade of fondness, but it was just a word, just a name that he had left behind twenty-some odd years ago with everything else in his old life, like a snake tearing away its skin for a new, more impenetrable--though more hideous--hide.

But in her mouth, it was soft and quiet and there was such hope in it. _I can't be what you want me to be_ , he wanted to say. _Don't have any faith in me. I will only utterly crush it._

With that moment of hesitation she took her hand away from his shoulder and her fingers hovered over the hand that held the gun. Her hands were firm and unafraid of the weapon that he held in his grip.

"Raymond," she said again, and he thought that he could spend the rest of his life hearing her say it. "Just put it down. It's over."

The pads of her fingers pressed against the back of his hand, a small smile creeping across her chapped, cracking lips, the edge of her thumb running across his rough skin, unconcerned that the movement might make his fingers slip against the trigger.

And that was the moment that it was over. His hand went limp around the gun, the weapon dropping down, his thumb thumping the safety back in to place. For a moment, his own body mirrored her slumping exhaustion from minutes earlier, but his constant control slipped back in to place, pulling his muscles tight again. As he tensed, her hand slipped away from his.

“I expect the task force will likely be here soon. Aram probably told them the house’s coordinates soon after he called me,” he said, a slight strain in his voice.

“Yeah,” she said, voice like a whisper against snow, like the brush of a wing against bark. “They probably will be.”

* * *

After what had just happened, Liz leaned with one arm against the window, forehead pressed against the glass, staring out into the night, waiting for the sweep of headlights to streak across the ground. As she waited, she and Red said nothing to each other. She wasn’t certain exactly what had just transpired between them. When she thought back on their argument, it seemed like it had happened a century ago rather than minutes. It was similar to the sensation of getting up on stage, giving a speech with a blank mind, brain entirely focused on remembering the talk, and then walking down the stairs and being unable to remember anything much about what had just happened. The entire encounter was a sensation of flashes of emotion—the blaze of anger, the trembling fear when she pried a chip of darkness out of herself and cupped it between her hands for Red to see as she confessed her violent fantasies, and then, the limp, cool calm pooling in the base of her chest as she realized how to ultimately get through to him the moment before she said his name.

Just as there had been had felt some sort of shift between them when they embraced outside of the courthouse, as she clutched his hands wrapped around the gun and his wide eyes stared at her with something like wonder and fright, then too she’d felt something had changed. If they had been some sort of puzzle, then cosmic presence had found a long missing piece of the jigsaw and slipped it in place, making the image of whatever they were clearer.

Her eyes flicked up at the flash of lights coming around a curve. The task force had finally arrived.

* * *

The remainder of the night continued to be a blur. There was Navabi and Ressler rushing in, eyes flicking between her and Miriam collapsed at the table, fighting against their desire to ask if she was okay and to check whether the woman was dead. Red had made some generic, sarcastic comment from the corner about them having little faith in his abilities to arrive somewhere without committing homicide.

After that, everything was a swirl of questions and voices, locks being clicked and turned open as they searched the house and found the rest of the women.

Dawn had shouted and sworn profusely, slapping and kicking at Ressler when she thought he was there to take her somewhere else and lock her up. Even after he’d explained several times he was with the FBI and was here to help her, she’d still shouted at him, partially out her derision for law enforcement deeply ingrained by her mob lifestyle, and partially because she said he hadn’t been found her soon enough.

When Reagan was taken downstairs, she just trembled and wept, her eyes as frightened and confused as they had been in the photograph Liz had seen. On the way out the door, with Ressler guiding her, she threw her long neck over her shoulder and gave Liz a look that stabbed her to the center. It said, _You betrayed us._

Liz snapped her eyes away and braced a hand against the window, suddenly feeling like smashing a fist through it, though she wasn’t sure why.

As per procedure, the task force was supposed to ask her all sorts of questions about what had happened, but she was sagging and wrung out, her body and mind dry and numb. As Ressler tried to ask her the requisite questions, Navabi had suggested that perhaps the questions could wait until tomorrow. He’d shut his mouth and nodded, giving a single, mumbled, _Sorry._

In the end, she just let Red and Dembe drive her home.

* * *

When she and Red walked into her apartment, she was immediately struck by how it stank of garbage heated too long in an unopened can, the contents finely cooked to disgusting perfection by sunlight shooting through the window. Her dirty dishes had a thin, fine layer of some sort of mold. The sight of everything that she still needed to do made her want to press her head against the kitchen table and groan.

She’d crawled out of a refracted nightmare and slunk back into the dull grind—punctuated by occasional horror--of everyday life.

“I would’ve cleaned it, but it seemed important to leave everything the way you left it in case I or anyone else needed to come back to look for more evidence,” Red said from behind her.

“It’s fine. I don’t need you to be my cleaning lady.” She slumped into a kitchen chair still pulled out at an angle.

“I’m disappointed at your lack of interest in seeing me in a revealing outfit,” he said, pulling himself down in the chair opposite her. He smiled, but it seemed weak and painted on.

She rolled her eyes. “You _do_ realize that most cleaning ladies don’t wear revealing outfits.”

“True, but the best ones do.” Again, he gave that faint smile, as if it was just expected of him, as if they were simply going through the motions.

Liz glanced down and curved her back, pressing her shoes against the floor to drag the chair closer to the table. She reached out to take his hand again, and as she did, he furrowed his brow and stared at it as if it was some strange, foreign insect that had landed on it.

“I know things got complicated and… _heated_ back there, but I really want to thank you for finding me.”

One of his knuckles twitched, and in the light of the strange, dreamlike hours of early morning, their skin looked ghostly and washed out. Under her index finger, she felt the raised line of an old scar on his skin. For a moment, she ran the tip of her finger over it, tracing the path of the memory of an old wound, wondering how and when he’d gotten it.

“You were the one that put the majority of the effort into escaping. You rescued yourself. I merely had a bit part in that,” Red said, his voice gone deeper with some emotion she didn’t know.

She didn’t look up from their hands. “It wasn’t just me. We both did it.”

For some reason, that made him quiet for a long time. As the seconds dragged out, he laced their fingers together, and their hands lay on the table, intertwined, looking like two strange creatures tangled in each other.

"Do you still believe that I’m a monster?" he finally asked, the tendons of his hand taut as if he thought that she would suddenly be reminded of how warped and cracked he really was, and would rip her hand from his grasp, horrified that she’d ever forgotten what he was.

But she didn’t. She simply raised one eyebrow and glanced up at him, finding his expression open and searching, throat jumping as he swallowed.

She wasn't exactly sure why he wanted to know what she thought. From what she understood, whether or not she approved of his actions was irrelevant to him--the only thing that mattered was whether or not his actions kept her safe. But something had transformed between them in their past several months during their time on the run, and she remembered that shift she’d felt between them just hours ago in the tomb of Miriam’s asylum. She still wasn't sure what the shift was, but maybe there was some part of him, even a small part, that cared what her opinion was.

"No, I don't. I...haven't thought that for a while, actually."

At her admittance, he was silent and still, eyes closed off. If he felt any strong emotions towards that confession, he was clearly tamping it down. It wasn't always easy to tell the difference between him not being phased and him simply refusing to let his reactions show. But his hand wasn’t as stiff as it had been a moment ago.

"I see. Well, I certainly doubt you think me a saint." The side of his mouth pushed up in a smile.

She returned it and glanced down. "Well, no. Not exactly."

"Then what do you think of me, Lizzie?"

This time, he wasn't even trying to disguise the fact that he wanted to know her opinion of his character. For a moment, she was amused. It was a role reversal of sorts--she was typically the one being blunt and straightforward in her questions, and he was being evasive in his answers, spinning some elaborate story to illustrate his point. If they were going to reverse roles in the conversation, then she was going to fully commit to it.

"A while ago I was browsing online and I found a scientific article that looked interesting. It wasn't about psychology, but I find new discoveries interesting, you know? Anyway, it was this whole article about this study these scientists did on some blind Mexican cave fish. There's this evolutionary phenomenon called atavism where individual animals within a species are born with traits that are an evolutionary throwback, like a snake hatching with hind legs. Anyway, the scientists thought that this brood of Mexican cave fish might have been born with some of their eyesight." She paused, keeping her eyes on him. The instant she had mentioned the blind fish, something had changed in his expression.

She continued, "So, to figure out whether or not that they had some eyesight, one of things the scientists did was perform various different experiments to see if the fish would react to different stimuli outside of the tank that they wouldn't be able to sense unless they had some eyesight. One of the experiments involved moving a light across the outside of the tank. The fish reacted to it. That was one of the ways they figured out those fish had been born with some amount of eyesight. They gravitated toward the light."

“I…Lizzie, thank you for believing that of me, but…” he pulled his hand away from hers, and her fingers felt strange, the spaces between them gone cold and empty, as if it was more natural for his hand to fill in the gaps. “That is not what I am. I very much doubt that I am capable of going to the glass if light flashes across it. I’d be more likely to shy away from it.”

Pressure built behind her eyes, and she crossed her arms, leaning them against the table. “Why are you so insistent on casting yourself as some sort of beast at the center of the forest that everyone should fear? Life isn’t that simplistic, and we both know that.”

“Some things are that simple,” he said, almost quietly. “I know what I am, and I am willing to live with that.”

“You’re not evil, Red. And—” she wasn’t sure what she was about to say next, but it trickled from her brain and fell onto her tongue. Not an epiphany, but a realization that had been building for a long time that she was finally ready to acknowledge.

Miriam had wanted to believe that she was nightingale, kind and sweet, who would be complacent to sit in a cage and warble a song in her dry throat, flight muscles withering, memory of the sky dimming. But Liz had seen herself as a hawk, screaming in blind rage, battering her talons and wings against the cage, restlessly watching her captor for some sign of weakness for escape, ready to wrench off the finger of her captor if she came too close to the bars. But Liz had just realized that neither was true, for both were too extreme and simplistic.

She was a bit of both. The sharp, impulsive creature in her heart had wanted her to hurt Miriam or Zachiel the instant the opportunity arose. But she hadn’t. She’d managed to reason and maneuver her way through the situation, even while a death hungry part of her hissed at the back of her mind. She was sharp and dangerous and vicious, but she was also rational and capable of mercy. She was the quieter edges of _Elizabeth_ , the gentler shapes of the name, the way the word could sound like a lullaby if spoken right. She was also the razor slice of _Liz_ , quick, fast, angry, and ready to react before fully thinking.

She was both.

She was just… _Lizzie._

And Red was _Raymond_ , the impish man from the stories about his younger years, but also the person capable of deep attachment and love for those close to him. He was also _Reddington_ , that sly, sarcastic criminal that always hid his true intentions behind a thick curtain of bombast, who could quickly turn deadly at a moment’s notice.

He was all those things.

Strange, and complicated, and broken and twisted, half in love with life and half cursing it. But he wasn’t some sort of hunched, isolated monster.

“And I’m not good. Both of us are a lot of things, and some of those things are bad, but a lot of them are also good. You keep telling me all the time that you think I’m light, or that I can be saved, but you can’t. That’s wrong. Maybe…maybe I do make you better, but you make me better too.”

After she’d said that, he looked like she’d slapped him instead of complimented him. He swallowed again, his mouth a frown. “Lizzie—”

“When I was in there, I did some of the things _you_ would’ve done. I used my own skills, but I used some of the mental tricks you use too. There have been times where I didn’t like how you’ve affected my life. I thought you made it… _worse_ somehow. If I’d never met you, I don’t know what would’ve happened. But I don’t think either of us would be the better for never having met. We do better together than apart,” she said, the last sentence almost a gasp as if it was ripped straight out of her.

She wasn’t sure why she had said something so deep, so personal. When it came to explaining her emotions, she often backed away from it like she was an animal avoiding a foul carcass. As she was kicking herself for saying it, Red reached out for her hand, stretching it across the table, bending his head over it to press his mouth to the back of her hand.

Something flipped inside of her. When he didn’t know what to say, he often spoke in terms of physical gestures. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to interpret what that meant.

He lowered her hand, but entwined his fingers around hers again. After a moment, he said, “There’s this theory called the multiverse theory. I really don’t understand the mechanics of it, though a quantum physicist tried to explain it to me once. It says that there are infinite versions of the Earth, and on those Earths there are infinite versions of every person that exists in the reality that we live in. If it’s true, I can’t imagine we don’t know each other in all of them.”

It was just a little anecdote, but the meaning behind it was clear: _I can’t be without you, not even in some other reality that I can’t ever be aware of._ It sucked the air from her lungs.

“Yeah, and you probably still drive me crazy in all of them,” Liz said, falling back into her habit of shying away from holding snarled, complicated feelings between her hands.

He laughed, warm and rich, and it made her smile in spite of everything. “I’m sure,” he said.

She frowned, pressing her lips together. It wasn’t right to completely ignore what he’d said. It wasn’t fair to him or herself, even though both of them often didn’t know how to fully, truthfully articulate the deepest things buried in the shifting sands of their hearts. She still didn’t know what to say, so she decided to try to speak the other language that Red was fluent in.

Liz let go of his hand and scooted away from the table. As she did, he raised an eyebrow, eyes following her as she walked around the edge of the table and came to his side. She bent her legs and sat down on the slice of the chair Red’s legs weren’t occupying. She leaned over, and as pressed herself into him, he scooted over, perhaps unconsciously, so that they were both half sitting on the chair. She lay her head against his shoulder and was surrounded by the scent of him—all cologne and smoke and something sharp and exotic. After a moment, his arm came around her waist and his cheek leaned against her head.

They stayed that way until early morning light melted into the apartment, pressed and leaning into each other, warm and afraid and maybe a little hopeful.

She wasn’t ready to say anything yet, couldn’t scrape around and excavate the name for what she was feeling for him, not even then as she shifted a hand and pressed it against his chest, her eyes half-closed, and him half-sighing as she did.

Not even then.

But maybe sometime.

Maybe soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand, that's a wrap, friends! Just a few things:
> 
> This story is kinda important to me, because, while I've finished a few multi-chapter things, they were only usually about four parts. This is the longest thing I've ever finished. In hindsight, there are a few things I'd change about it, but I'm overall happy with the final product. And also, a HUGE thank you to everyone that commented or kudos'd the fic. I'm just really amazed at the lovely, encouraging comments I've gotten. When you're new to a fandom, you never know how receptive people will be to new writers, so thank you for making this experience great for me.

**Author's Note:**

> If you noticed any slight parallels or influences also from Lady Ambrosia, it's true that I was also somewhat inspired by that episode. I wanted to do a fic with fairy tale themes, but AU from 3B.


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